background

Want a blurry background for your portraits on-demand, whether or not you're using a fast lens? Or maybe you are using a fast portrait lens, but you want to shoot with it stopped down to the sharpest possible aperture without sacrificing that beautiful bokeh you're going for.

Well now you can now do that without having to put serious distance between your background and subject. Just pop up one of Lastolite's new Out of Focus Backgrounds.

We wouldn't exactly describe it as 'elegant,' but this little DIY project by Instructables user pizzidave is both functional and extremely easy to make. Requiring almost no DIY 'skill' of any kind, you can create a cool background and grid diffuser for yourself using some plastic bottles and rubber bands.

Is Amazon attempting to patent an age old photography lighting technique? A recently published patent seems to suggest that, and it's getting some photographers up in arms.

It’s probably safe to say many -- if not all -- of us know how to remove a background from an image in order to separate the subject of that image. But, thanks to a convenient website called Background Burner, the process has been simplified for when you need speed more than specificity.

It’s always interesting to hear how photographers ended up with the career they did. Photography is interesting because, unlike most jobs, it’s something that can be completely self-taught. This leads to a photo community made up of incredibly varied backgrounds and fascinating cross-over stories, and headshot master Peter Hurley has just such a story.

The photograph above seems fairly straight forward: pretty model photographed in Paris with the Eiffel Tower in the background. But that's not actually the case at all. The photograph was actually taken in a basement in Ohio.

Photographer Glyn Dewis shared this cool little technique that lets you work with a black background even if you don't have an actual backdrop with you. It's a fairly common trick that he refers to as "the invisible black background," and it's a nifty little tip that many photographers may want to keep up their sleeve.

Here's a tool you may not have heard about but may useful at some time in the future. It's called Clipping Magic, and it's designed to remove backgrounds from user-uploaded pictures.

The concept is rather simple, you upload an image, mark the areas in the background you don't want in red, and mark the areas in the foreground you do want in green. The website's algorithm takes over and (hopefully) produces a background-free picture. Sounds simple, doesn't it? But how does it fare when used for an image with a background you actually want to remove?

This is a photo of Winston Churchill by Yousuf Karsh, captured in 1941 during the early years of World War II. It is said to be one of the most widely reproduced photos of all time.

It's a legendary portrait of a legendary man by a legendary photographer. There's also a legendary story about how it was shot.

During Halloween a month ago, we shared a simple portrait idea by photographer Nick Fancher that involved firing a flash through fog and a perforated hardboard for a backdrop filled with beams of light. Since that initial experiment, he has taken the concept and developed it even more.

Fancher recently built a "white room" in his basement using sheets of white pegboard and hardboard. It's essentially a white cube without side walls.

We'll preface this by saying that this is very dangerous and if you choose to attempt it you do so at your own risk -- we don't recommend anyone try this at home. That being said, this is also one of the coolest "backyard" special effects we've ever seen, and one that would make for some kick-a photography backgrounds or slow-motion video.

The London Evening Standard has published a fascinating article on a photograph captured …

The Fader has published an interview with …

Here’s a quick and easy tip from Scott Kelby for portraiture: reduce the …

This short film, found in Contacts, Volume 1, is a fascinating video in which photographer William Klein takes us beyond his iconic images to discuss the stories revealed in his contact sheets.

Here’s a creative self-portrait by Dutch photographer Joeri Bosma. It’s neat how the …

For every iconic photograph that's out there, there was likely a number of other photographs taken at the same time that many people probably have never seen. One such photo is Migrant Mother by Dorothea Lange -- an image that became one of the defining photos of the Great Depression. The woman in the photo, Florence Owens Thompson, had been travelling with her family when their car's timing chain snapped. After setting up a temporary camp to wait while her husband and two sons went to town for repairs, Dorothea Lange drove up and spent 10 minutes capturing 6 photos.

Here's a quick video tutorial by Olivia Speranza teaching how to create an infinite white background.