The basics #4: Backgrounds

I'm getting a little personal here.  Today my hubby and I were talking about "home."  Home is where your heart is, yada, yada, yada.  Well then our hearts are not with us in Utah.  We left them in Hawaii and whenever we talk about "home" we get homesick.  I guess I should say Hawaiisick.  I was blog surfing today and stumbled upon The Pioneer Women's.  As I was scrolling through some past posts I noticed a "Coming Home" assignment, photos of soldiers coming home.  As I scrolled through many emotional photos I saw this one and I was fighting back tears.  This is home... well it's the airport back home, the Honolulu airport.

Photo by Janda03

AND then I noticed the subjects.  Oops.  I guess I was supposed to see the subjects first and feel the emotion but funny that the blurry background is what caught my eye.  There was no caption to this photo and yet I KNEW that it was the Honolulu airport.

  Your background is still part of your photo.  Just because your background may be a little blurred does not mean you can disregard what's back there.  Make sure you're always aware what's behind your subjects because if you don't see it somebody else will and sometimes we're so caught up in the emotion of our subjects we lose track of our surroundings.  Is there anything jutting out of your subjects head like a tree or a pole?  Is there anything distracting behind your subjects or lines pointing at your subject in places that are unappealing?  Because people will notice.  So always be aware of what's behind your subject, in the background.  I most definitely am not using this photo as an example of that.  Just FYI but just a friendly reminder that backgrounds, even though blurred, are still part of the whole picture and we need to treat it as such.  Who knows if your background will move somebody just as or even more than the main subject?