Why does portrait photography blur the background?

In many portraits, it can be found that most of them will blur the background. This is not to say that it is necessary to blur the background when shooting portrait photography, but it has become a trend and general trend of portrait photography. However, in some special photography fields, such as environmental portrait photography, background blur basically does not appear.

When most novice photographers start to shoot portraits, they will take portraits with blurred background as the sign of getting started. Background blur is actually very simple. Background blur does have many advantages in portrait photography, so most of the portrait works we see are background blur. So, why on earth do most portraits blur the background?

First, highlight the main body

As we all know, the subject of portrait photography is of course people. Yes, in portrait photography, people exist as the main body, and the most important person in portrait photography is to reflect the posture, movements, appearance and even emotions and emotions of people in photos. But in life, people are always in the surrounding environment, and the same is true when shooting. If you don't use the shallow depth of field effect to blur the environmental background, it will easily lead to the disorder of the background, and sometimes the background will usurp the role of the owner. Of course, if you can choose a perfect background, you certainly don't need to blur it. The difficulty of environmental portrait photography is the choice of background. In environmental portrait photography, it is always necessary to ensure the consent of the characters and the environmental background. We call it "the unity of man and nature".

Second, the depth of performance.

Another function of background blur in portrait photography is to express depth and increase the three-dimensional sense of the work. Why is it difficult for us to see the blurred background in landscape photography? Because when shooting the scenery, the three scenes of near, far and far have been able to clearly show the three-dimensional sense and layering of the picture. Portrait photography, there is no division of near, far and far scenes, and the most is to add a foreground to the characters. At this time, it is necessary to use the background blur effect to give the picture a sense of depth, so as to further realize the three-dimensional sense and layering of the picture.

Three. Reduce complexity and simplify it.

Photography is the art of subtraction. What are the three principles of photography mentioned in the new photography textbook? The theme is clear, the theme is prominent, and the picture is concise. The effect of background blur can satisfy two principles. We have already talked about the principle of highlighting the subject in the first point. Another function of background blurring is to simplify the picture and blur the messy background, so as to achieve the effect of concise picture, which makes it easier to shoot successful portrait photography works.

4. How to blur the background

The blur effect of the lens mainly depends on three elements: aperture value, lens focal length and shooting distance.

Here is a brief talk about how to blur the background, just a few simple steps. First of all, we should understand that the degree of background blur is inversely proportional to the depth of field. The shallower the depth of field, the higher the background blur, and the deeper the depth of field, the lower the background blur.

Secondly, we need to know the relationship between the above three elements and depth of field. The smaller the aperture value, the shallower the depth of field; The greater the focal length, the shallower the depth of field; The shorter the shooting distance, the shallower the depth of field.

Having said that, you should also know that by opening a large aperture, using a long focal length, and then shortening the shooting distance, you can get a shallow depth of field, that is, you can get a relatively high background blur effect.