Frame Flowers Against Black for Drama

One of the problems of photographing close-ups of flowers is that there is usually a lot of clutter around them. You can use sticks and tripod legs and things to try to keep some of this scrub out of the frame, or limit your depth of field to just your subject (use a wide aperture to limit depth of field) so that the background is out of focus, but it's still there. One way to get a nice clean and dramatic look in flower photos is to use a black background. I carry around a big piece of black fabric and also some pieces of black poster board (about a buck a sheet at craft stores). Then when I find a flower I want to isolate, I slip the background in a foot or two behind the flowers (to keep it totally out of focus and with no reflections or bits of white lint showing up).

I used a sheet of back fabric (slung over a lawn chair a few feet behind the flowers) to photograph these bleeding heart flowers in my garden and, just by good fortune, the fabric was in shadow while the flowers were in sunlight. The added contract of sun against shade helps too. I did, however, also use a small amount of fill-in flash because I wanted more depth of field than I was getting and turning on the flash helped me shoot at a smaller aperture (I was working, as always, in the aperture-priority mode) of f/22. Again, because the flash was several feet away from the black fabric (the flash was only about a foot from the flowers), there was no chance of light picking up folds in the fabric, etc. Later in Photoshop I also used the selective color tool to make sure the black was very black.

Beware the Six-Legged Horse

If you look closely as this photo, you'll notice that the horse appears to have four front legs. This is a beautiful (and huge) draft horse, so I'm not sure if that would make him stronger or not, but it sure makes it look a bit like a circus freak. The problem, of course, is that the other half of this team is standing right behind the front horse and all that you're really seeing from the second horse are its front legs.

Unfortunately at that moment the horses had just finished working and were eating furiously, so I wasn't going to ask the owner to pose them better for me. I only shot the photo because it was such a beautiful and big horse, I wanted a snapshot of it. The point is, though, you really have to keep an eye on backgrounds. Had this been an important shot I would have waited or worked harder to find another angle. But it was just a snapshot at a country fair, so I let it slide. But do beware (and be aware) of backgrounds when you're shooting--especially people and animals--or people may think you're shooting pictures at the sideshow.

Telephoto Lenses: Beware Compressed Background Clutter

The ability to cut through space and make distant subjects seem much closer is the reason most people want long-focal-length lenses and it's also why camera manufacturers work so hard at making good-quality and affordable zoom lenses. Long telephoto and zoom lenses are great for sports, wildlife or candid people photography or any situation where you want close shots of far-off subjects close. In a lot of situations (like sports) using a long lens is the only option you have.

One of the problems of using longer focal lengths though is that they compress the apparent distance between different areas of your compositions. While this can be a creative advantage at times (compressing a silhouette of a sailboat into a setting sun, for example), it can also create situations where it's hard to separate the main subject from the background--as is the case in the top photo. I shot this photo of a tugboat in New York harbor (from the New Jersey side of the Hudson River) using a Nikkor 70-300mm lens at 165mm (which is roughly 247mm in 35mm terms). While I like the idea of the Manhattan skyline behind the tug, from the vantage point that I had there is no separation between the boat and the buildings. Had I been able to find a better vantage point (perhaps a more head-on angle on the tug), the focal length might have been fine. But as it is, the background seems to clutter the shot too much.

As the boat came closer to me though, I zoomed out a bit to a focal length of 220mm (about 330 in 35mm terms) and waited until it cleared the clutter of the buildings and had just an open river (and in the distance the George Washington bridge) behind it. If I had had the time, I would have backed off on the zoom a bit and shot the entire boat, but because it was moving so fast and I wanted a closer shot, I had to shoot very quickly. By the time I got this shot the boat was almost right in front of me. And as I said, I really wanted a shot of the tug in front of the city buildings, but when you're shooting moving subjects you don't always get what you want.

Whenever you're using long telephoto lenses (anything that is longer than, say, 135mm in 35mm terms) be aware of what is behind your subject and make sure the compression isn't combining the near and far in an unattractive way. If it is, see if you can find a better angle so you can see some space between near and far and if not, you might have to alter your composition a bit or back off on the zoom. In this case I was lucky because the subject was moving and I was still able to use the longer focal length but choose an alternative background.