Foreground versus Background

I took these two pictures on Saturday during a short but pretty snowstorm that rolled over the area.

In both pictures I was using a foreground subject with snowy details against a low contrast backdrop with less detail.

This first picture I used sharp focus to bring out the crystalline quality of the snow against the somewhat blurred backdrop of trees in the background. The different contrast levels also helps make this distinction.

I didn't use Photoshop but if I had, I'd drop the contrast even more in the trees to simulate fog. There was so much cloud cover along with the snow that the atmosphere naturally gave the impression of fog even though there wasn't any present.

In the second picture I have my lovely model standing in the falling snow, with trees in the background to help make the snowflakes stand out better. There's too much detail in the dormant grass in the midground. I should have blurred that part somewhat in Photoshop but I was too lazy to bother.

It wasn't until later in the day that we realized how little snow fell in most of our area. We received around 2 inches here but most of the area had little more than a few snowflakes scattered about.

We hiked around 2 miles in the snow. It was quite lovely though we were pretty wet by the time we got back. Although it was very cold when we started, by the time we got back to the house the temperature was up around 35f.

The dogs jumping up on us with wet paws didn't help any either. :-(

Comments

srp said…
Well, it looks better on the trees and on your lovely subject than it looked here last week on the roads.
4:44 PM
Naquillity said…
i absolutely love that first picture. i wish i could capture the snow falling as well as you did in that second pic. have a great night.
7:21 PM
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