Photo tips: Shooting Detail Shots

As an editor and design director, I am a huge fan of detail shots because they help balance the overall look and feel of the story and it's the perfect solution for cropping out busy backgrounds. I am always inspired by National Geographic-style images and I love these detail shots in particular.

Photo by Catherine Karnow

Isolate the Object From the Background

By Catherine Karnow

Often when I’m feeling a little overwhelmed by what to shoot in places like markets or busy streets, I’ll start by shooting details. I find it meditative and relaxing to concentrate on a single object. One key to capturing details is to use a shallow depth of field to separate the object from the background. In Murnau, Germany, I loved the hand-colored postcards I saw outside a shop. By using a very shallow depth of field—an aperture of f/3.5—I was able to isolate the postcard I liked most, with its turquoise water and rowboat, from the background of the busy street. I kept in a bit of the postcard above it to make sure the viewer knows it’s on a rack and was also careful to include an out-of-focus postcard on the right to hide the thick metal pole that I knew would have drawn the eye away from my focal postcard. 

Catherine Karnow is a San Francisco-based photographer whose work has appeared in National Geographic, National Geographic Traveler, and other publications. She has been teaching photography workshops since 1995.