1. A method for classifying a visual element as either foreground or background in a video frame method comprising the steps of: computing a blob boundary characteristic for a blob, wherein said blob comprises at least one visual element corresponding to the video frame and the scene model and said visual element are labelled foreground based on at least a match mode boundary characteristic in the scene model; updating the scene model based on at least the computed blob boundary characteristic and the match mode boundary characteristic; and classifying the visual element based on the scene model.