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 Sexy Alicia in a photo with a medium depth of field. One of the first things I learned about photography was to understand how the right depth of field (DOF) in my photos can enhance my photos. When one uses point & shoot cameras, most of the time the people or things in the pictures are all in focus. This is due to a large aperture setting like f/11 or so. Get your first DSLR or higher end point & shoot, and you’ll soon find that by changing the aperture setting along with your distance from your subject, certain things will and will not be in focus. Trust me, this is a good option.
When you want a subject to be in focus as well as the distant background, then you need a large DOF and your must make sure you are not too close to your subject. Too get something in between, then a good example is the photo on the left. I photographed the sexy Alicia to illustrate how I can manipulate the DOF to my advantage. Having her against the fence, I wanted the viewer’s eyes to be drawn to three areas, her face, cleavage and the narrowing fence leading away from her. I shot it at 40mm, f/7.1 and 1/500th sec., I also cropped it a little.
 Alicia wearing a sultry dress looking in the mirror. For the photo of Alicia on the right, I placed a mirror a few feet to her left and away from me. This time shooting at a focal length of 50mm at f/4.5 and 1/125 sec., I was able to have her torso on the left in focus and blur out her reflection in the mirror. Using the similar setting, I could have focused on the reflection having it in focus but then her torso on the left would have been blurred. By the way, I used Aperture Priority settings for all these images.
 Photo of Alicia with a narrow DOF In my last example, I took a close-up of Alicia against a plain tin wall. Shooting directly against the wall would have revealed the texture of the tin too much, so I shot it at an angle. Since I photographed her close up, I needed to blur out the far and near portions of the tin wall. I shot wide open at an f stop of 2.8, with a focal length of 80 mm and a shutter speed of 1/250. This allowed me to make Alicia’s face the main focus point of the image.
So next time you’re out taking pictures with your new DSLR, take it off of Program mode. Experiment with Aperture Priority or Manual mode and create great images with various depth of field settings! Finally, I’d like to thank Alicia for modeling for these pictures.
 Photographed using a Nikon DSLR Here is a good Tuesday night photography tip, next time you shoot a friend, relative, model or whoever, get in real close for a very personal shot! Its nice to photograph people from the waist up as most people do, but sometimes its nice to zoom in close and take a tight crop picture. In the bottom picture, I zoomed in and made sure to fill up the viewfinder with her face. She had cute curly short hair and very little makeup, I wanted to show her naturally beautiful face and the only way to do it is to get in close.
Taken at a wide open 2.8 aperture setting, it allowed me to blur out the background, I used my 80-200mm AF-D 2.8 lens (Nikons new version is the 70-200mm lens, at a later post I’ll go over Nikon lenses and my thoughts on them).
The angle I thought was also great, having her look over her right shoulder gave it a special touch. Its as if I caught her in the middle of a thought or about to say something.
 Headshot I also like the first image, which shows her more playful side and a little more of her body. This picture is what most people would take and of course are accustomed to viewing. Compare it to the second with the tight crop and you can see how each have their own special features. Photography isn’t only about having the most expensive or latest photo equipment, its about creating images that tell a story, at least that’s how I view each project.
With the first image, I zoomed in to 105mm and again used a wide open aperture of 2.8, if you try this, be sure you are far enough so she is in full focus, use your aperture preview button to confirm every part of her is in focus. The fact that she was playing with the two strings from her blouse added to the playfulness of the shot. Overall I think the picture is fine but not as personal as the close up image above. As a photographer, I try all types of poses, angles and experiment often. Try it yourself and you will see similar results!
 Have fun during a photo shoot. Every photo shoot I do normally has a purpose. Sometimes its for a client, other times its for my inventory of stock pictures, whatever the reason I always try to find a person I think will fit the project. Even when I do a test shoot, I only offer it to people that have certain characteristics that appeal to me. And one characteristic I always try to make sure they have is a positive attitude.
I’ve found that people that are positive tend to be happier, smile more and easier to work with. I learned this the hard way early on in my photographic career. I recall photographing a model who was hounding me for weeks to shoot her. Finally when I agreed and she arrived at the studio, we clashed at the “hello”! She proceeded to tell me instantly that she only wears black and that she brought her own wardrobe because she would only model in the clothes she had. She went on to list several conditions, including the last one which was that I should not expect her to smile too much!
Needless to say, I cut the time of the shoot in half and never used the pictures for anything. It was the longest and worst hour and half of shooting I ever did. Nowadays I pass on anyone like that, life is too short and photography equipment and studio time is to expensive to waste on people like that.
The image included in this article is of a woman I would photograph any day of the week! She was nervous at first, but was happy, positive and energetic! She arrived ready to have fun and enjoy the experience. We even went over our time allotment and shot for an extra hour! So next time you photograph a model, be sure its a “happy” one and leave those negative people for someone else. And for the models, have fun, relax and enjoy the experience!
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