Aperture....and the Cooperative Rose Bush

I will warn you right now that this post contains lots of pictures...all of the same 2 subjects. One of them was good as gold. The other had to be coaxed, cajoled and pled with to sit for photo practice purposes. This lesson required two subjects, one slightly to the side and about 2 feet behind the other.

Here are my two subjects....my lovely daughter and the rose bush seen just to the left of her shoulder there. The object of the lesson was to start with a narrow aperture and gradually take pictures while opening the aperture wider. You can see what happens to the rose bush in the background. As the aperture gets bigger, the background gets blurrier. Yes, you can watch what happens to the rose bush, but perhaps a little more interesting are the expressions on The Girl's face.

We start out pleasantly enough. And yes, she really is that pale in real life. It's the Scandinavian genes.

And we ended with this one. Happy, happy girl. You might notice the little circly light things in the  left side of the photo. Apparently that's a good thing.

I almost lost her when I said I had to do the whole thing over again standing 10 feet further back. Notice the "gritted teeth" smile.

This was a real light bulb exercise for me because it showed me that aperture isn't the only thing that determines depth of field. Distance from the subject matters as well.

Hang in there, Girl!

I actually really like this one, even though I submitted it as one I could improve on. I really like the natural smile here (seen rarely enough as it is) despite cutting off one of her hands and the slight merger problem with the branch and her head. I had really tried to put her in an area of open shade, but when she tilted her head back, we caught the full effect of the sun/shadow on her face. Still,  I like it because she's smiling. And here's the "creative" focus photo. I know you were anxiously waiting for it.

 

Comments

[andrea]

lol. Those are awesome!!

[Little Sis]

Nice! I did this once with a daylily as my main subject. It was fairly cooperative.

[pam]

they all look good to me!