Hello, friends! Just thought of writing on a lighter note to ease up the week.
As a photographer, one of the most dreadful things to happen to you is a photobomb. For those of you who are not familiar with the term, it is not anything that explodes but I guarantee you will explode (either with anger or laughter) once you see one. Photobombs are unintended objects or subjects that pop into your picture when your actual focus is on something else. For example, you may be taking a picture of a newly-wed couple in a nice wooded area but as you clicked the picture, you probably didn't notice the two chipmunks in the background doing something pretty nasty! Those two chipmunks could have spoiled your perfectly exposed picture of your happily smiling couple or you could sell the concept to the couple as a "Love is in the air" theme!!
More than often, photobombs only mess up a good picture rather than complementing them and hence their name. They can end up making the photo hilarious too. If you google images of photobombs, I guarantee you hours of entertainment looking at rib-cracking pictures posted by various people across the world. However, for a serious photog, photobombs are not a humorous thing. Imagine setting up a long-exposure shot with the perfect light and your shot is messed up by someone walking into your shot! Been there, had that happen.
So, how do you fix it? Unfortunately, there are no green and blue wires to defuse these. But, based on what type of photobomb you have, it may be as easy as cropping the picture appropriately. For example, look at this picture here. I took a shot of me, my family and friends sitting in a bus, on the way back from Hearst Castle, CA. I put the focus on my beautiful wife through the bus' rearview mirror. I had my 50mm prime lens loaded on the camera and so, there was no way to actually zoom into it but I was able to get a crisp shot of her along with my friends.
And since I was not able to zoom in, my original shot included other folks in the bus sitting next to us as well and look at what I captured of a fellow passenger a.k.a Photobomb!
ROFL Not a pleasant thing for a family and friends' pic. In this case, since the guy was sitting away from us, I was able to crop him out easily and defuse the photobomb. But, in pictures where your composition is messed up or the photobomb got in front of your subject and there is only so much Photoshop can do, you can do nothing much other than redo the shot. So, it is always good to review your shots onsite when you are taking some very important pictures. It is also a good practice to take a few extra pictures of your shot in case you mess up one somehow. I even change my settings for the same shot and redo it a few times. Again, if it is a casual shot, you won't regret so much about the photobomb. Just laugh it away! Have a great rest of the week, y'all!!