Background

[arshana]

When taking a picture of one particular object, not macro shots, is it preferable to have a one-coloured background i.e. black or white, or just leave it as it is? I find some of mine a bit messy and out of focus.

 

[LaFoto]

There is - as always - not ONE answer to this question. It - again - depends on what to want to achieve with the photo you are taking. If it is supposed to document clearly what something looks like (let me take a flower, for example, taking your avatar as my immediate reference point here) and it is the texture of the petal with the water droplets and the pistils and pollen in the centre, then a neutal background may well help you show this.

If you, however, go into the field of "bokeh", i.e. the "aesthetic quality of a blurred background", you may find there are lenses that - given the right aperture - produce a very nice, varied, vivid, blurred background that can be quite attractive. There are sites out in the internet on "bokeh" (you may google them up) and we have a theme tread running on this very site in the Photo Themes where members on here have tried to produce photos with a nice "bokeh"... let me find the link for you and you can also go and look there... here you are: http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25929 .

Hope that gives you some "First Aid"

 

[arshana]

Thanks for that link. It explains 'bokeh'. Are macro shots included under 'bokeh' since that sometimes you do get the blurred background effect?

 

[LaFoto]

From the little that I have learnt (through this very forum, mind!) about the concept of "bokeh", it is - as always and again! - highly subjective as to what is considered a nice bokeh and what is just "blurred background". I have not managed to really get behind the term myself so far, either. My understanding of bokeh now is that it should contain still SOME definition of what is happening in the background, though so little only that it ADDS to the motif in focus but does not distract from it. The motif in focus must still be "in focus" ... also of interest in a photo. But, like I am saying, this is MY interpretation of the term.

This is just to say that the background need NOT always be plain. It CAN also be "living".