Depth of Field

Back when I was in college I took a black and white photography class.  We were taught all aspects of photography as well as how to develop our rolls of film and print our photographs on these huge photo enlargers.  I can still smell the chemicals and hear the shutter clicking shut when the exposure was complete.

I loved that class!  It was a great creative outlet for my young self.

There was only one thing I didn't like about the class.  The professor.  He was constantly harping on me for cropping the shot through my camera lens and taking too many shots with a shallow depth of field.

He wanted us to practice shooting an entire scene and then coming back into the dark room and cropping the shot we wanted. 

My brain didn't work that way.  How I saw the shot in my camera was how I pictured printing it out.  Plus, I liked a close crop on the subject with a shallow depth of field and since I was paying for the supplies I was going to shot the way I liked.  So there!

Shots that included the entire scene always felt to distracting to me.  They still do.   I do take shots of entire scenes when necessary, but a shallow depth of field will always be my default setting.

Check out a few shallow depth of field shot I took this week.

Giggles galore erupted when my flat footed lovely flipped up her cavebaby foot while I was checking my exposure for this shot.

My mom brought these delicious banana bread muffins over on Monday.  For me food should always be shot like it is just about to enter your mouth. 

Kate's first sock monster doll.  Tell me that isn't the cutest 11 year old created sock monster you have ever seen?  Apparently the crafty gene will live on.

The added bonus with this shot is that the shallow depth of field caused the light coming through the trees to create a slight bokeh effect. I love when that happens.

Head over to 7 Clown Circus to see more Wordful Wednesday posts!  On Thursday check out You Capture over at I Should be Folding Laundry  to see more Depth of Field shots.