Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
How would you like to have an infinite number of different backgrounds for your portraits? What if I told you that you can? In fact, it’s very likely that you already have this “infinite background machine” at home? Any ideas what it might be?
If you thought of a TV, you were right. In this video, Joe Edelman will tell you all the benefits of using a TV screen as your backdrop, and he’ll also teach you how to use it to make the most of it.
For those of us born in the 1970s and ’80s, this new phenomenon of mottled, cloudy backdrops appearing in modern portraits is an odd one. You see, back when we were kids, we had horrendously cheesy family and school portraits taken in front of these bizarrely arranged patterns, so to us, it’s pretty weird to see these painted, cloudy backdrops now grace the covers of Vogue and Tatler.
Shooting in a studio has its advantages. But although being warm, dry and convenient are greatly appreciated, shooting between the same four walls can get a little boring if you’re constantly using them as backgrounds for your shots.
Sure you could get some coloured paper setup, you could even buy a fancy canvas sheet with paint splashes on it, and for the really adventurous, you could even use some coloured lights behind your subject. But what happens when you’re finally bored of all that? Time to get a little more creative with your studio backgrounds.
There are several ways to make cutouts in Photoshop, but now there’s a plugin that does it for you in a matter of seconds. Recently launched by remove.bg, this plugin lets you remove background in a single click. It’s free for download, but there are extra perks if you opt for one of the paid versions.
There are different techniques for cutting out a subject from an image and placing it onto a different background. But now there’s a website that does it automatically. On remove.bg you can upload an image, and with a single click and a few seconds’ wait, you’ll have a photo from which the background has been removed. And in most cases, the results aren’t bad at all.
When shooting portraits, the background is one of the things you need to be mindful about. And if you shoot outdoors, you don’t have so much control over it as you do in the studio. In this video, photographer David Bergman will give you a few quick tips for choosing the perfect background and improve your outdoor portraits in an instant.
I have no idea where I first heard this, but it’s extremely true: “the main difference between painting and photography is that the painters need to work hard to put things into their images, whereas photographers have to work hard to take things out of their images.” Painters start with a blank canvas, and every single thing that ends up in the final piece of art is a result of careful craftsmanship, years of hard-earned skill, and raw intention. The photographer’s canvas, on the other hand, is all of the world’s visual chaos, and he or she must deploy an equivalent amount of craftsmanship, skill, and intention to weed out all the fluff.
I believe you already know that “zooming with your feet” and changing the focal length can affect the relationship between your subject and the background. In this short video, you can see the effect of both coming close to the subject and changing the focal length, and how it affects the final look of your image.
Portrait photographers pay a lot of attention to their subjects, but sometimes they don’t pay so much attention to the background. In this video, Jeff Rojas will show you three key ways to make the best out of your studio background and make your photos even better.
When photographing wildlife – much like hiring a new employee or going on a date with someone you met online – it’s essential to do a background check. What is behind the animal that you’re photographing?
The background can completely make or break an image. It’s essentially the canvas that you’re painting the rest of your picture on top of. By paying more attention to what’s going on back there you can vastly improve your images.
I’m going to show you four photos. They all feature the same Tenerife Lizard and were all taken a handful of seconds apart. The only thing I changed between each image was my physical position in relation to the lizard, giving me an entirely different background each time. Let’s have a look!
You can find out more about John on his website and follow his adventures on YouTube and Facebook.
His videos have over a hundred million views, have been extensively published by news outlets, and has even received recognition from a few film festivals, such as International Ocean Festival
