Still asking for a good background(Sticky: School of Portraiture - Links to Lessons

[Catalina]

I while I agree that the exquisite brown background of the portrait of the woman in Africa.
I am wondering why not to use curtains and a sofa for a background. I do not have money to change the curtains in my house for plain ones.
I feel that if I hang a piece of fabric and ask people in my family to pose, it is going to feel and be very strange.
I want to take a photo with a good background and at the same time make feel people at ease posing for me.

Here I have two examples of photos with curtains. and I know...yes.. they.should not be there, but what the photographer should do? Open the curtain's? and then feel an obstacle for his studio lights against the glass window?


Pardon me if I insist but I am still confused

[Stagecoach]

Catalina,

Are you able to use your camera in way that you can 'blur' the background?

Have you tried doing this with a subject (it does not need to be a person) to see if the affect is pleasing to you with the backgrounds you have available around your house?

Grahame

[Colin Southern]

I think what you're wanting is an environmental portrait -- one where you show the person in their environment?

[chauncey]

Have you considered http://www.joann.com/ they do make for cheap backdrops hung over your trellis.

[Catalina]

Thanks a lot to you all
1. I don't know if I am capable to blur the background
2. I think that in some occasions the environment shows important things in the photo. I have a photography of my grandmother and my mother in the day of her weddings posing in their own houses and the result is lovely( pardon my ignorance)
They both posed against a beautiful oval mirror. Ole because the background. On the other hand my wedding
photos look terrible because I am standing against some vertical acrylic curtains, they are so out of fashion.
3.I do not live in the USA but here any piece of cheap cotton fabric will do, I still think that this would look weird for my visitors.
So I will try the first two suggestions first.

[Catalina]

I am grateful, with all of you. I wish you the best Christmas ever. May God bless you and your families and friends.
So after Christmas I will see you.

Cordially

Catalina

[Manfred M]

Thanks a lot to you all
1. I don't know if I am capable to blur the background

To blur the background have your subjects stand at least 2m in front of the curtains and shoot close to if not at maximum aperture (i.e. wide open; not stopped down at all) of your lens and shoot at maximum zoom (I think you said, you have the 18-55mm lens, so shoot at the 55mm setting).

That should give you an indication of what you can do in bluring the background with your equipment. I suspect you might find the areas in your house where you are trying to shoot a bit tight to give you both the distance you need to set your subjects back as well as the distance between you and your subjects.

Based on what I see in your shot, try to shoot where there is no overlap in the curtains and look at moving the table in front of the sofa and beside it out of the way, to keep those items out of the image. Ideally compose so the top of the curtains don't show either.

[Catalina]

I printed your instructions.
You are so helpful that I can call you my hero.
A difficult background will be right now solved at last
ThANK YOU, HANKYOU, THANK YOU

[jcuknz]

When the background is as close as shown in all the photographs I doubt very much if the blurring can be done 'in-camera' to any great degree of satisfaction.
But in editing it often can be quite simple in duplicating the image, blurring the top layer and then erasing the areas you want to be sharp with a soft eraser.... but to do that you first need to get the editor, need to practice with it, much of editing is appreciating how each tool works and a personal appreciation of what looks 'right'.

I mentioned that glass is like a mirror ... the problem with the curtain rail is that the photographer was standing at an angle to the wall, a similar but greater angle could mean reflections are not seen. The huge mass of curtain is a problem to me but with them part drawn they might hide the reflection for you. In making that suggestion I do not know what is outside the window Here done very roughly to give an impression of a possible result.It would facilitate in later editing the replacement of black with a soft image of the garden outside ... whatever.

As a photographer you need to appreciate what you want and if it might seem strange to non-photographers ... well that is their problem as you know what is needed ... assuming you know what is needed. There is the well known anecdote of how Karsh the portrait photographer snatched the cigar out of Winston Churchill's mouth to get the 'angry bulldog' expression he thought appropriate to Winston.

[Colin Southern]

When the background is as close as shown in all the photographs I doubt very much if the blurring can be done 'in-camera' to any great degree of satisfaction.
But in editing it often can be quite simple in duplicating the image, blurring the top layer and then erasing the areas you want to be sharp with a soft eraser.... but to do that you first need to get the editor, need to practice with it, much of editing is appreciating how each tool works and a personal appreciation of what looks 'right'.

In my experience trying to emulate DoF falloff in PP generally looks fake.

[jcuknz]

In my experience trying to emulate DoF falloff in PP generally looks fake.

Probably becuase it was not done properly.... if there is a reasonable gap between subject and background it can be done ... in any case blurred in-camera backgrounds are a flight of the photograhpers imagination unless a very long lens us used with the background a goodly distance behind the subject. What the camera partly achieves can be improved upon in editing.
Hope you are having a happy Christmas Colin and everybody else

[chauncey]

In my experience trying to emulate DoF falloff in PP generally looks fake.

Been there, done that...looked terrible!

[Colin Southern]

Probably becuase it was not done properly

I don't think people realise just how hard it is to do properly. First mistake people make is in using a Gaussian blur, which looks different - the second mistake they make is to blur everything that's not the prime subject by the same about - and then if all of that isn't bad enough they don't manage the transition between the zones effectively.

[jcuknz]

Thankyou Colin ... you said it for me

There is one answer which may not have been suggested as yet. It depends on the size of the room, and bearing mind photographers have worked through the doorway from the hallway on occasions, is to situate the subjects away from whatever background you choose. This give the starting chance for the background to be out of the depth of field and soft. For group shots the sizee of the room probably dictates that you use the wide end of the zoom but if you can manage it use the long end for singles and pairs at the largest aperture possible, i guess f/4 at the wide end and f/5.6 at tele.
In doing all this with the remote flash remember it doesn't have to be level with the camera and provided its light covers the whole subject group it can be closer than the camera. You may need to learn to reduce its power so you can work wide open ... if you cannot then white facial tissues rubber banded over the flash head will do that for you.

The wonderful thing about digital is that you can take test shot and adjust until you get it right.