Do Backgrounds Matter?

YES.

The whole bit about making lemonade out of lemons doesn't really help when the lemons are bad to begin with. The Ace Brown Rodeo Grounds in Camp Pendleton is my bad lemon. It's host to a few horse shows every year and sadly, its appearance has been getting pretty bad. Case in point: On the south side of the grounds facing the main arena used to be large white wooden bleachers. It wasn't the best looking background but I could work with it. Now I can't. Sometime between last September and last weekend the south side looks like it was used in a Marine bomb training exercise.

The bottom picture is an example of the new background. The halter class gave me next to nothing to work with. Since shooting on the opposite side was a no go, I tried to get in close to shallow out the depth of field. Nope. Still to far back. My only option was to crop it real tight and hope for the best.

Most of all the other classes were on the rail so I was able to avoid the south side when I could. Below is the best background I was able to work with. Oh yeah, it was maybe 8 feet long.