subject/backround help

[mtb'n ski]

Ive been shooting a fair amount of ski photgraphy lately but i have been having trouble making my subjects stand out from my backrounds. Are there any techniques or tips any of you have? Any help would be appreciated.

[Lionheart]

It might help to know what it is you are having difficulty with. When you say "ski", do you mean snow skiing or water skiing? If it is snow skiing, what do you mean by "standing out from the background"? Is it the lack of detail from underexposed photos? Subjects tend to be dark and lose detail against the background in snow skiing if the camera is metering for the snow, which will fool the meter into thinking there is too much light in which case it's a matter of underexposure. Open up 1-2 stops and your subject should stand out quite nicely from the background with properly exposed detail, although the possibility that the snow will burn out needs to be weighed. The same can be true in water skiing when there is a lot of reflection from the water fooling the meter into underexposing the scene, although I personally have had little experience with water skiing photos, as I am paranoid about dropping my precious camera into a lake. Snow skiing and cameras I have some experience with, and almost without fail, the most common problem encountered is underexposure of the scene.
Here's a classic example-camera meter is fooled by the snow, and the edited photo if the exposure is opened up a couple of stops. Hope that answers your question

[mtb'n ski]

Thanks for the reply. I was talking snow ski, sorry i didnt specify more . I hadnt even though about the snow messing with my light meter.

[another view]

The number one thing to consider is the light. Mainly the quality of light (like overcast, mid-day bright sun) and direction (like behind your back, straight overhead). Studio portraits can be done with a lot of lights set up to make the subject "pop" from the background - you're not going to do that here (at least with action shots) but look closely at the lighting in portraits for some ideas. A subject that is the same color as the background will be difficult to get much separation with than a different color and tonality - for example blue and green are pretty close but yellow and red aren't - and look good together. Light from behind you tends to flatten everything out which will affect the separation too. Light coming from the side (in relation to where you shoot from) will help.

Also try shallow depth of field (bigger aperture like f2.8 or f4). If your skiers are moving, try panning them with a slow shutter speed to blur the background but keep your subject relatively sharp - but that takes a lot of experimenting and shooting to get some good results.