15. Walls, Translucent Surfaces, and Textures

At the start of my career as a full-time photographer, it was common for me to find refuge near walls during a portrait session. Walls were abundant and easy to photograph, and they also kept the photograph simple without any distracting elements behind my subjects. Most of my early portraits, however, had a flat dead end as the background. As most people do at the start of their photographic endeavors, my thought was, “Since I’m taking these photos with a professional camera, they must be professional photographs.” Was I ever wrong! It turns out walls can be deceiving in their complexity.