Focus, a simple concept.

As I sit and think about this I’m probably over complicating this topic but recently I’ve been realizing that I’ve been assuming too much about photography. This as probably many of my future and all of my past posts are from an unlearned perspective.

Photographs transcend snapshots, simple captures, they inspire and stir emotion. A picture taken to remember an experience can bring memories and emotion from a time past, a photograph has the power to stir emotion in people who were never there.

Compositionally building a photo and putting something within 4 frames is dependent on many factors. One of my current focuses is Focus, why? I want my photos to not only capture the moment, my son sick but resting on the couch or eating pizza at the table making faces, I want to convey their personality.

After reading and doing a little bit of study in composition I learned about Depth of Field and life presented the opportunity to work on Depth of Field and Focus, well started me on focus.

I started to ramp up my serious shooting in late August early September and in so doing I try to learn every time I pick up the camera. (Honestly, I don’t know if I learn every time but close enough.) Through this process I am learning when to trust the camera and trust my eye. This is proving to be a challenge as I’m not always sure what exactly is in focus, time will provide the lessons.

The following captures were of my oldest son, he was sick with a fever and we were relaxing waiting for the medicine to bring his temperature down. While he was laying on the couch with his juice I pulled out the 200mm and the tripod to take pictures of him as close up as I can yet still be far away.

The shot below is one of the first where I was dialing in the focus, I decided to rely on manual focus to get focus where I wanted. As you can tell from the shot I was a tad bit off of my subject:

The next image I was very close to being on the money, close enough that it takes a few seconds of the eye find that I believe I have his left shoulder almost perfectly in focus. Regardless this is one of my best shots to date.

With my subject being at least in focus I continued to try and capture what really was an adorable but miserable time for my kiddo.

What is awesome (this edit comes months later) is that I was playing with an extremely shallow depth of field. As I was able to focus in on him and get him clearer I was able to create on my favorite sets of images.

I will continue to edit this as I remember 😛