Not all busy backgrounds are bad. In art, there are always exceptions, and I feel this picture represents one of them. When I first thought about posing these two Balinese dancers in front of the root system of a large tree, I felt there was no way it could work. But when I took a couple of shots and looked at the LCD monitor, I was surprised that I liked the results. The color and tone of the background are muted, and that's what makes it work. The bright fabrics the young girls are wearing stand out against the much darker tones of the tree. In addition, the root system created an organic, mysterious, and intriguing backdrop.