Three Tips to Gain Separation of Your Bird Subject from the Background

^{Note: This tip comes from the photography case study #4 ‘Separation From the Background’ inside Photzy’s - 5 Extended Case-Studies on Bird Photography}

Separating the subject from the background is a common issue in wildlife photography. In most cases, we want the animal to stand out. The only time you would likely not want the animal to stand out would be if you were trying to show its natural camouflage.

One of the issues with making a bird stand out from the background is that we often don’t have a choice. However, if you do have some planning time for your projects, look at the background. Look at where the light is coming from or will be coming from when you shoot. A simple change of camera position might facilitate a completely different look.

This colorful bird is almost lost in the background.

In some cases, you may have no choice about what the background provides. In these situations, you can look to post-processing to create some separation. 

Check out the next photograph.

In this example, post-processing has been expertly used to create separation from the background. The photographer ‘darkened’ the background to ‘push’ the bird forward in the composition.

Key Point: Lighter objects move forward in a photo composition, and dark objects recede. You can use this to direct attention in a particular direction.

Backlighting or side lighting is an organic way to separate the bird from the background. This requires some thought processes when selecting your camera position.

By reducing the darks using the Curves tool in post-production, the organic side lighting in the original photograph becomes even more enhanced.

Another separation method is using ‘color contrast.’ Color contrast is created when colors that oppose each other on the RGB color wheel are placed next to each other in a photographic composition.

There are any number of ways the photographer could have framed the above photograph. By placing the yellow area of the bird against the blue sky, the bird is separated from a pretty busy background via color contrast.

Want more? If you want to learn more about bird photography, and capture beautiful shots of your own, we recommend downloading and printing out Photzy’s 10 Bird Photography Cheat Sheets (Special bonus available now!)