Photographing Your Cat – Part I: Simplify the Background

I am a firm believer that the background will make or break an image and that the background is just as important as the subject, lighting, and composition. Many of the images I see everyday, no matter what the subject is, always seem to have a background that is too busy. When you have multiple objects in focus in your background it tends to take the viewers eyes off of the main subject, in this case your prize winning cat. You do not want the viewer’s eyes to wander from your subject since your goal is to capture the viewer and center their attention on your cat.

The best way to achieve this is to simplify the background. Look around in your house, cattery, or outside for a pleasing setting that does not have too much clutter and only a few elements. I really prefer outdoors for these types of images as you can use a distant background made up of trees, shrubs, blue sky, and infinite other possibilities. If you do photograph your cat outdoors make sure you can control them and that they will not run off. If you even so much as think your cat might take the high road, then you should find other possibilities such as a fenced in area or inside with the background being a big window so that you can still get an outdoors feel to the image.

Once you have a photographic background picked out, another way to simplify the background is to use your longest focal length lens and a wide open aperture. When I speak of aperture, I mean the diaphragm that opens and closes inside your lens which controls the amount of light that strikes the film plane. You have seen references to the aperture of your camera even if you are not familiar with the term. The aperture is related to the f numbers of your camera e.g. f2.8, f4, f5.6, f8, f11, f16, etc…. The smaller the f number, the more light your camera lets in. When you focus your camera on a subject, the critical focus is only in one plane. If you close down the aperture (bigger f number), you will get more depth of field meaning more things will appear to be in focus along the lens axis. If you open up the aperture (small f numbers), you will get less depth of field. To simplify the background, using less depth of field will make the background blur out and yield a very pleasing background that does not distract the viewer from the subject. The further away the background is from the subject, the more out of focus the background will appear.

Take a look at this photograph of Piton. I had him outside and was letting him play on a tree limb that I set between two chairs. The background is made up of some pecan trees and a wooden fence about 50 yards away. I photographed him in February with the sun shining over my shoulder in the late afternoon and my aperture set at f4 to give me a shallow depth of field. Next time you are out taking some images of your cat, try simplifying the background and use a small aperture for pleasing images.

Next time I am going to discuss composition and how it can help further improve your images.