1. A computer-implemented method for absorbing elements of scene foreground into a background model associated with a scene depicted in a sequence of video frames captured by a video camera, the method comprising: receiving image data for a current video frame, wherein the image data classifies each pixel in the current video frame as depicting either foreground or background; and for each pixel in the current video frame classified as depicting scene foreground, updating corresponding pixel data in the background model based on one or more color channel values of the pixel in the current video frame and an absorption factor.