I’ve explained in a previous article on how to photograph sports, that it’s a good idea to choose your spot and wait for the players to come to you. But how do you make sure that your background is suitable? What makes a good background? What do you have to think about when it comes to backgrounds?
In a nutshell, you are looking to avoid anything distracting that will take attention away from your subject. Here are some examples:
Cars
Different coloured cars, especially when they’re shining in the sun, don’t make for the best background in the world. Cars have got nothing to do with football.
As an example, I was shooting the Torbay Clearance Services SDFL Ronald Cup final. You obviously don’t want to be shooting into the sun for sport, unless you’re doing something really arty. With the sun coming down in one corner, I could have covered the whole pitch, but behind half of it was a car park. You’ve got red cars, blue cars, white cars, black cars, green cars: distractive cars!
So, I deliberately chose the area of the pitch from the corner flag at the opposite corner to where I was sitting, so that when I was shooting players coming towards me, I knew I wouldn’t have those cars in the background. I would have a plain background, non-distractive to my subject.
Bins
I’ve noticed that the Devon FA have put wheelie bins all the way around their pitch. I’m going to have words with them, because it’s getting to be a pain. You’ve got a tiny space between them, giving you a split second to get your shot before players are running in front of a bin. They’ve got bins in places around the pitch where nobody goes. I know they’re trying to keep it tidy, but you have a bin behind the corner flag, then half way along between the corner flag and the goal net, then you’ve got the goal net, then you’ve got the storage shed, then half way up that line, you’ve got a bin. Then, another 50 foot and you’ve got a bin. In front of the stand you’ve got three bins: one in the middle, one at the far end and then one at the end closest to you. There’s just too many of them.
Anything like that looks horrible, especially wheelie bins. They look atrocious.
How can you avoid having to crop out bins or wasting images? It’s all about timing. You’ve got a split second. Say you’re shooting at 1/500s. If a player’s going to spend the first 250 increments of a second with a bin in the background, choose to take the picture during the second set of 250 increments.
You’re not just watching the subject, you’re watching the background. You’re scanning it, and trying to predict what’s going to happen. You’ve got a player coming up the side, who’s running past the bins; you’ve got an opposing player coming in to try and tackle him. In theory, the first player is going to be past those bins by the time he tackles him. So, you’re not ‘rattle, rattle, rattle, bin, bin, bin’, you wait, wait, wait, two players, whites of the eyes, ‘bang, bang, bang’ – job done.
“In a nutshell, you are looking to avoid anything distracting that will take attention away from your subject.”
Sponsors’ logos
Sponsors’ logos can be quite distracting as well. It’s a controversial thing to say, but if it’s not the logo of the company sponsoring the game, you should avoid them where possible. Look out for advertising hoardings and banners in the stand.
If you’re taking a sponsor’s shot, you don’t put other sponsors’ logos in the picture. I’ve seen sponsor’s shots where the smallest logo in the picture is the sponsor the team is trying to say thanks to! The team have been stood in front of the stand underneath a huge banner from another sponsor. The general viewer is not going to read the text. They’re going to scan it and jump to the conclusion that the most visible company are sponsoring that kit.
People
People in the background really don’t work, especially if they’re stood around smoking. I was caught out recently by a one minute’s silence. It was an off the cuff thing, so nobody told me and the message didn’t get across to me in time. I’m walking across the pitch, away from the stand, and I’ve got no time to position myself in front of a good background. They made the announcement, and I thought, ‘Oh no, I wish they had told me. I’m in completely the wrong place,’ because I would be shooting towards the stand. The stand was more or less empty, so that wouldn’t have looked good. Wherever I angled, there was somebody either eating a burger, drinking a drink or smoking. It’s not good, during a one minute’s silence, to have someone in the background eating chips. It disrespects the person they’re having the one minute’s silence for. So, I couldn’t give them a comprehensive set.
Some people, even officials, are just oblivious. They don’t think about the photographer. If they’ve got a job to do, they’ll walk right behind the subject I’m taking pictures of!
Crowd shots can be tricky. If your team’s cheering, because they’ve scored a goal, and there’s someone in the background looking miserable, wearing the same team colours, then it’s not going to work. So, you’ve got to scan that crowd and see who’s in the background. If someone in the background’s eating chips, I won’t select that shot.
If you haven’t got it in the shot, you don’t have to get rid of it!
A good rule of thumb is, ‘If it shouldn’t be there, don’t have it in your shot.’ If you know you’re not going to have the time to get rid of it in post-production, get your shots right first time. I produced about 400 sharpened and cropped shots for the FA in four hours. If you get your workflow right, you can finish an image in 30 seconds. I open up 15 at a time, go across and sharpen them, go back across and level them, go back across and crop them, close and ‘save as’. But if I was going to spend time cloning out bins, that’s going to add another couple of minutes per image, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter how fast you are. If you’re going to clone out posters or people, or even try and blur the background, it still takes extra time.
Have a burning photography question you would like Al to write about in his next blog post? Email info@miraclepr.com with your request.