Backgrounds

It might sound obvious, but backgrounds are an important element in portraiture.  With all of this emphasis on key lighting for the person in your portrait, I don’t want to move on without talking about background considerations.

Things to be mindful of with backgrounds:

• Distractions:  Use the background or environment to help tell the story, but don’t let those elements take away from the subject.
• Illumination:  Just as it is with your subject, the lighting on your background very important.  Is it too dark, too bright, contain too much contrast?
• Balanced Lighting:  We want to consider the effects of differences in lighting intensity, color and appearance in general.
• Focus:  How much of your background should be in focus?  Use depth-of-field to your creative advantage.