Scouting Mission

Part of a good photograph is contrast of picture elements. For example, light vs. dark, round vs. square, in focus vs. out of focus, and you can probably think of countless more comparisons.

There is an opportunity to shoot an accomplished figure skater and I want to make interesting images that she will be pleased with. For contrast, an urban background behind a graceful figure skater might help make interesting images.

In preparation, on Sunday morning, I went out looking for backgrounds such as a skating rink in downtown Toronto with buildings and lights in the background. Other than Nathan Philips Square and Harbourfront skating rink, I didn’t find what I was looking for. Here are the scenes that I did find: this shot is from Yonge/Dundas Square at 7:00 am.

Below: Yonge/Dundas square looking toward the north west corner. I liked the reflections in the glass on the building to the left.

The background will be slightly blurred using a shallow depth of field so the detail content is not so important. More important are the shapes and light. The ambient light from the signs at Yonge/Dundas is quite bright and a color balance close to daylight produces near white.

The scouting mission was interesting and I did manage to find a few places to shoot some images at some point in time. Below, Harborfront:

Finding backgrounds is a bit of a departure from my normal approach to photography; the background was always viewed as the subject.

Turns out that I started out shooting backgrounds and I just didn’t know it, but that’s another topic…