Backgrounds Make the Shot

by Jim Zuckerman

I think backgrounds are underrated. Too often, in the classes I teach at Betterphoto. I see photos that students upload for assignments that have distracting and uncomplimentary backgrounds that seriously detract from a subject.

Sometimes, of course, there’s nothing you can do about a background. You have to live with it or use Photoshop to change it. Such was the case when I passed a beautiful farm in Pennsylvania and stopped to get a shot of it. The background wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t exciting, either. An hour earlier I had taken a very pretty hillside in peak autumn foliage, and I thought the two would be perfect for each other.

In my Creative Techniques in Photoshop course, the second lesson is all about cutting and pasting one photo into another. It’s basically a simple procedure, but it takes a little finesse to make it look believable. The most important factor to pay attention to is the lighting. It’s critical that the light be the same in both photos, as they were in these two shots. You can see what a dramatic difference a great background makes.