What I mean with do not shoot busy background is: Avoid shooting main subjects in front of or surrounded by many other objects that has no direct relation with story line.
It is not about shoot in minimalism way. Instead, we can still include many elements inside photos, but we need to make sure each of elements will enhance story line about main subject. Otherwise, all of other objects will become distraction and reduce the presence of main subjects. Which is will confuse viewers about what story line we want to tell in our photograph.
Get creative and search objects surround point of interest to create dynamic composition. We can use many elements like diagonal line, colour match, reflection, silhouette, strong facial expression, sunstar, gesture, etc.
Pay more attention to corner of our frame instead of centre area
Right before we click our camera shutter, always remember to double check whether there are distractive elements in corner area or not. Distractive elements could be in many forms, from other people’s faces, tip of hands, bright colours or any still objects that has no story connection with main subject. All of them only work to decrease the value of main subject.
What if moment happened so fast that we do not have time to capture a neat frame? I do think that crop our images is fine as long as we do it as little as possible. However, the more frequent we crop, the lazier we become to create a perfect framing. Always try our best to not crop photo, watch our whole frame before click camera shutter.
Note: Most of the time, our centre area (contain main subject) would remain there and stay in our frame, nothing much to worry. Distraction usually appears at corner area, because if we found distractive elements in centre area then we will avoid to take photograph at all.
Avoid tunnel vision
Some people shoot on the street use tunnel vision, they only look at one interesting point and “forgot” to see that there are so many other elements around main subject. The result is we can find photos out there that has a strong main subject with so many distractive elements around. Do not get trap by photograph an interesting subject without consideration, see objects around it whether can help to build a story or decrease main subject’s presence.
Each elements has a role
It is totally fine if we want to take some elements at one time in one frame. Just make sure each of elements has a role either to create dynamic composition or add story line. As in photo above, I shot crowd and “use” them as layer to shape a geometry line.
I shot layer when I am in the middle of crowd place and has found no way to photograph only one single subject. Get a clean surface or background, shot people in layered position. Make sure subjects has separation “room” and not overlapping one to each other. To create even more dynamic photograph, we can add another “effect” like gesture or silhouette.
Related article:
Read my previous post about Street Photography Tips: Minimizing Distraction
I do believe that one of the most important key to create strong photograph is by eliminate distractive objects. This thing is so crucial.
Simple practice:
Start by shoot our family, friends, pet, or love one. Make portrait of them in front of clean background (no other people’s faces!), and always pay attention at corner side to make sure there are no “leak” of distractions. Want to photograph our love one and use beautiful painted wall inside cafe as background? Make sure there is no tip of chair or table at corner area to distract our photo.
That is all about my tips to minimize distraction in our photograph. Always remember that we want to shoot the main subject as the main story, anything that unrelated to main subject or story line are simply distraction unit that we need to remove.
Keep shooting and stay inspired,
Nico Harold