This portrait of my client Lisa Jeffery (coach in communication skills) is a good example of how I used the shallow depth of field to give emphasis to Lisa and Valentina. I wanted to show the landscape and it's colors but I didn't want it to compete with lisa.
"Besides changing the shutter speed to manipulate light as it enters the camera, you can adjust the aperture, the opening through which light enters the camera. Like an eye, the aperture expands or contracts according to how much light you want. The aperture is adjusted according to a scale of f-stops. The lower the f-stop, the wider the aperture opening and the more light is allowed in. An f-stop number is universal from one lens to another."
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Compare the aperture to your eye. When it gets dark the pupils open up to allow more light in. The lens's aperture does the same.
The F stops on the aperture will give you the measurement of the opening.
F2 is a wide opening.
Have you seen those lovely portraits of people where the background is all soft focus and it seems that the colors are floating around? That is done with a wide aperture. F1 or F1.4 , F2 or F2.8.
So the aperture controls the amount of light that goes through the lens (and reaches your film or your digital media) and it will also control the amount of sharpness your photograph will have.
The amount of sharpness is also called the depth of field.
F2 has a large (wide) opening. It allows a lot of light to enter the lens.
F2 has a shallow depth of field. The only area that will be sharp is the one you focused on - the background will be soft.
By controlling the depth of field you will be able to control the areas in your image that will have more importance or emphasis.
It's not just how she showed the background landscape, but Marguerite's talent as a photographer was that she was able to capture Valentina in flight on my head, at the same time I had a great smile! How did she do that?
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