P26: Selective Focus

Over time my use of wide apertures is changing.  Many years ago when I first realized what a wide aperture lens could do, especially at telephoto focal lengths, I used this technique a lot, marveling in the new found world of Bokeh.  Nowadays, I cringe when I read that word, it and the technique it springs from is one of the most overused cliches in photography.  I recall a conversation I had with Rob in a bar in Leeds in which we agreed that most photography could be done by setting the camera at f/8 and letting ISO worry about the rest.  In fact, these days if I am working street photography or landscape this is pretty much what I do.  The more popular magazines describe f/8 as the boring safe aperture, wrong, it is the sweet spot where stuff works and the photographer can worry about what is in the frame.  We spend so much time on the physics and technicality of handling the camera that we forget that it is about the picture.

Now, you might immediately point me at my last two posts in which I gleefully used fast lenses wide open at f/2.8 or f/2, and yes I also agree that there is a value in such photographic technique, but it should be used carefully and deliberately to produce an effect for a purpose.  In my case this is generally to romanticize a couple or to reduce a picture to an abstract blur.  I also think that narrow apertures f/22 and up are also over used. Landscape photographers marvel over the depth of field, as do macro photographers, the problem I have is that they can create descriptive photographs that somehow lack a soul.  For me f/8 is where its at.  I have an f/1.2 50mm full frame lens in my cabinet which is where it stays - expensive lump of glass.

This project, however, suggests a use of shallow depth of field quite different from what I have used in the past, to blur the foreground and not the background.  Here are a couple of wedding/engagement shots that place a sharp foreground on a blurred background, the conventional use of low depth of field.

However, I have also used the opposite to blur the object of desire in a groom's gaze:

In the above image the blurring affect draws attention to Toby's face as he commits himself to Kati. The lack of detail in Kati, suggests rather than states.

The next image was one of those snap moments when a picture emerged from the crowd then vanished again.  Here Julia is framed by the two older ladies, their blurred white hair drawing attention to Julia in the background, her eyes directly engaging the camera.  The slight blur on the foreground really emphasizes the figure in the background.

Similar shot, different subject, a Bayern fan enjoys the lead up to their Champions League victory this summer.  Once again the two figures in the foreground serve as a frame bringing the eye into the image.

An alternative view is the following.  Not a great image, it is too untidy, but the contrast is strong between the flowers and the rowdy fans.

I finish with something quite different and strange.  I have been trying to adapt a shallower depth of field approach to my underwater macro photography.  This was shot at f/4, but very close to the animal which has thrown it almost entirely out of focus.  This is a very delicate lacy scorpion fish with a strange fragile beauty.  I wanted to do something different, most people would shoot this at f/22 or higher, creating a very detailed and dark image.  By shooting at f/4 I get this luminous affect.  The key is in the eye, it must be in focus and is why it is at the center of the frame right underneath the focal point for that shot.  I might have chosen differently, but such moments are fleeting and wearing scuba gear managing a camera is more challenging.

I use this technique of blurred foreground very selectively.  It has the risk of becoming very trite, but has been used by the masters, Garry Winogrand springs to mind, but he is a master of this technique, although in his case I am sure many such shots were happy accidents.