One technique you can use to make your subject "pop" is blur the background; another is to make the background look further away from the subject than it actually is. Shooting with a zoom lens -- something larger than 50mm, and, ideally, larger than 200mm -- accomplishes both of these. The longer the lens, the greater the illusion of distance between the center of focus and the background; the longer the lens, the larger the f-stop that will blur the background.