The following are the methods on how to highlight the shooting subject in a complex background:

• Choose an appropriate shooting angle:

By looking for a unique perspective and avoiding messy background elements, the shooting subject can dominate the picture. For example, when shooting a single flower in a flower bed, a low-angle upward shot can be used with the blue sky as the background to make the flower stand out.

• Apply the shallow depth-of-field effect:

Use a large aperture or a telephoto lens to blur the background and make the shooting subject sharp and clear. In this way, the audience’s attention will naturally focus on the clear subject, and the blurred background will not be distracting. For instance, when shooting a portrait, blurring the background will make the person more prominent.

• Utilize color contrast:

If the background color is rather complicated, you can look for a subject color that forms a sharp contrast with the background color, or adjust the color saturation, hue and other parameters in post-production to enhance the color contrast between the subject and the background, thus highlighting the subject. For example, when shooting a person in a green forest wearing a red coat, the contrast between red and green will make the person stand out.

• At the shooting site, try to eliminate unnecessary background elements as much as possible:

You can change the shooting position to avoid a messy background; or crop the picture in post-production to cut out the distracting parts. For example, when shooting a product, place the product in front of a solid-color background cloth, or when shooting natural scenery, wait for pedestrians, vehicles and other elements to leave the scene before shooting, so that the subject can be presented more concisely and clearly.