Blurry Backgrounds

Beautifully blurry backgrounds can make for great shots.

Your attention is drawn to what is sharply in focus, helping tell the story of what your photo is about.

With enough blur the image becomes simpler and your composition becomes one subject and a number of blocks of colour or tone.

• Technical jargon:  That out-of-focus blur is called bokeh. The amount of the image in focus is called depth of field.

How to get a Shallow Depth of Field

Your depth of field depends on your aperture and distance from the subject. Both wider apertures (smaller F-stop numbers) and being closer to the subject (which can be achieved by either standing closer or by using a telephoto or macro lens) give you a narrower depth of field.

If you want to get really technical, here is a depth of field calculator: DOF

In this photo of a grasshopper I used an extension tube to turn my lens into a macro lens by letting it focus closer. The grasshopper was pretty cooperative by sitting still and staring at me (unlike the really unhelpful ladybirds on my sunflowers - next shot - which would not keep still!). I focused on the eyes which is where we naturally look first. The colourful background was created by a pretty garden windmill, turned into big blocks of colour by bokeh.

Tutorial 2 - Composition for Landscapes part 1

I think of composition in landscape photography as a bit like Zen gardening. You have a limited space - the frame - in which to arrange all the elements in a manner which is particularly pleasing to the eye.

If you're thinking "how do I arrange a landscape", the answer is that while you may not be able to simply pick up bits of the landscape and put them where you want, you can change not only where you point the camera, but also where you take the photo from, how high above the ground your camera is, and your focal length (ie wide-angle, normal, telephoto), and these things make a big difference to your composition.

What to include: give your shot a clear subject or focal point so the viewer knows what they're looking at.

What to exclude: before you take the shot, look for unwanted details such as power lines or rubbish bins that you can leave out of the shot by moving a bit and re-composing.

Now lets explore the tried and true composition tools.

The Rule of Thirds. It's a bit misnamed, as it's really just a guideline, but it's good.

Imagine your frame is divided horzontally into thirds. Next divide it vertically into thirds. You end up with a grid that looks like this:

The rule of thirds says that the eye is drawn to things that rest on these imaginary lines and at their intersections, so if you place the important elements in your landscape on or near these lines and intersections (the horizon in particular), then you immediately have a much stronger, more interesting image than if you just placed them in the centre of the frame.

Leading Lines. Obvious lines in the picture create paths for your eye to follow. They can be straight, curvy, wiggly, whatever. They are powerful ways of drawing attention to a part of your shot, and can create a strong and visually arresting image.

Foreground, middleground, background. Including all three of these gives a real sense of depth to an image. When you do this, it often helps to include something of interest in the foreground. To get all of it looking sharp and in focus, have a look at Tutorial 1 - Getting it all in Focus.

Balance. Balance the visual weight of elements or tones across your frame. This can be symmetrical as in a formal garden (ie using reflections on lakes), or asymmetrical, as in a Zen garden, which is more common for landscapes. While there is even a mathematical formula (the Golden Mean) for achieving this balance, you have a natural instinct for the visual weight of something and you will know if a picture seems balanced or unbalanced.

To view more of my landscapes, check out my gallery here:

First Light Gallery

Coming next, Tutorial 3 - The Light and Landscape Photography (Composition for Landscapes part 2 will be after we've covered the basics).