another black and white- rules on blurring?

[kell]

I know on last black and white many said to blur background. Should I always blur background? What are the rules. Should I blur this one or does it work and anything else that needs addressed.

Canon T21

[RichardTaylor]

There are no rules.
It is an artistic decision and depends on what you want to show,.
If you are shooting for your self anything goes.
However if you are shooting for somebody else it depends on what their requirement are.

I do both - if the background detracts from the subject I shoot wide open to try to throw it out of focus as much as possible..

If it is an environmental portrait I won't.

[ZannieGirl49]

Originally Posted by RichardTaylor

There are no rules.
It is an artistic decision and depends on what you want to show,.
If you are shooting for your self anything goes.
However if you are shooting for somebody else it depends on what their requirement are.

I do both - if the background detracts from the subject I shoot wide open to try to throw it out of focus as much as possible..

I totally agree with what Richard said. It's definitely an artistic decision.

[wal]

in this picture.. i would blurr it as the background has nothing much to show. But, blurring the bg with the two subject is facing away from the camera and looking outwards to the back like that might make the compositon looks strange.

[RuthieMae]

I blur the background (IN CAMERA) on almost all my portraits. I just blur some a little more than others. The foot chop in this image is very distracting to me.

[BigFuzzy]

Originally Posted by RichardTaylor

There are no rules.
It is an artistic decision and depends on what you want to show,.
If you are shooting for your self anything goes.
However if you are shooting for somebody else it depends on what their requirement are.
I do both - if the background detracts from the subject I shoot wide open to try to throw it out of focus as much as possible..
If it is an environmental portrait I won't.

Agree fully. To me it's all about whether what's in the background adds or detracts to the image I'm trying to create. If it's distracting, I tend to blur it out. But then again, sometimes I blur it out just because the blurred part adds to the image (by making the subject stand out).

Originally Posted by RuthieMae

I blur the background (IN CAMERA) on almost all my portraits. I just blur some a little more than others. The foot chop in this image is very distracting to me.

I agree with "in camera" because most people (ie non pros) cannot blur it artificially and make it look good and it ends up being worse than simply having a distracting background because it looks cheap and amateurish.
And yep, the chopped feet is distracting to me as well.

[Niresangwa]

You're missing the EXIF data, which in this instance would have been important - knowing your f-stop and SS would help diagnose what's going on with the technical 'issues' in this image.

How did you convert to B&W? Were the details lost in the conversion, or in the exposure for example.

I would suggest considering how you're framing the shot before worrying about how to effectively use DoF and bokeh... aside from losing the feet as others mentioned, the tree is intersecting the girl's head - you cannot rely on a shallow DoF to fix compositional issues like this.

The height of the shot (ie it seems you were standing) is also a consideration - varying the height and angle you shoot from is imho the easiest way to make a composition more interesting. It also combats somewhat the fact that the line between the grass and treeline cuts through the couple, and when you converted to B&W with blown out grass, you're losing contrast against the bright coloured shirt on the child.

Lots to think of, even in a simple shot like this one, but thats enough to chew on - when you try again, definitely include the EXIF, as its easier to give advice on potential changes on settings that may or may not help... the composition elements though - those you can work on just by taking a little time to recognise whats in the viewfinder before you hit the button.

Edit:

so i looked at the image's exif in flickr:

1/125 @ f7 w/55mm, 100ISO, 0EV

for being outside in what i assume to be pretty broad daylight you really could have used a much faster shutter speed, and if you do try and introduce a shallower DoF to get 'blur' into the background, you will surely have to bump the SS significantly when there's that much available light. If you're unsure how the two are related in terms of settings, switch into AV mode and set the F-stop as low as your lens allows and see what the camera suggests as the SS. Then switch into Manual mode keeping your F-stop the same, and vary the SS yourself to see what the different results are - its only through experimentation such as this that you'll begin to grasp what is happening and see it with your own eyes.