Background Ideas

Hi guys! Just wanna know your suggestions when it comes to backgrounds. We are going to make a photo album for our dogs and we plan to take pictures that would show their usual activities. Could you suggest me a good background for the shots?

Natural habitat?

Lots of possibilities. With natural backgrounds (always a good choice) you have to be careful not to end up with a tree branch or some other object 'growing' out of the subject. Because we see in 3D and usually focus wide-open, it's easy to miss this when shooting. Happens even to presidential photographers.

 

Irving Penn photographed many subjects with plain backgrounds. He even packed the backgrounds into New Guinea.

 

Whatever the background, make sure it doesn't distract attention from the subject.

 

Example of bad background making the subject hard to see, and red pole coming out of the dog's mouth.

 

If we learn from our mistakes, I ought to be pretty learnéd by now

Good light & shadows, even backgrounds (floors, walls, sofa/chair, grass, leaves, sand, water). Choose a background that contrasts (darker or lighter) with the that of the dogs. Don't forget that the photographer's perspective (high/low/close/far) largely determines what we see in (and of) the background.