Stu Brown's Photography

Just a spring flower photo I took earlier today.

This one takes a little imagination. I saw these snow piles while snowshoeing today, and it reminded me of a woman’s figure while she’s laying down.

Aperture is your friend for closeups, part 1!

This demo is geared more for beginners, than advanced camera users.

I’m just trying to share part of my learning curve,  hoping that it’ll help others become better photographers.

I should mention that I used a hotlight, modeling light to control this environment, and didn’t try anything special.

When I first started getting into photography I didn’t have the faintest idea what aperture, or f-stops were. I always heard they controlled the DOF (depth of field, or area in focus) however when I tried playing with it and hitting the DOF preview button all that I saw was the viewfinder getting darker. Like in the 3 photos below. I knew that this was caused by the hole in the lens becoming smaller, sort of like your eyes pupils closing when you enter a brighter room.

f2.8

f5.0

f8.0

What I didn’t see through the viewfinder at that time,  is that although the view finder was getting darker as the number when higher the background was becoming more and more in focus. decreasing the shutter speed will of course compensate for the aperture closing.

f2.8

f5.0

f8.0

By the time you get to f16.0 most items in the viewfinder, and in the photo are in focus.

After a while I was able to train my eyes to see through the darkness, and watch as  these effects happened. With a little experience I had a pretty good idea of how the full image would turn out. One disadvantage of higher aperture, as you can see in my photographs is dust spots become more visible.

I also discovered choosing the right background could really enhance any close up photographs appearance.  For the most part you want a contrasting background colour, however I’ve also discovered that having more than one colour in the background enhances the photo even more.

As you can see with this first photo I have a piece of cardboard in the background.

Blured out like that, it honestly isn’t a bad background, however switching it with one of my photos really enhances the photo.

Often just taking a moment to look for the most colourful contrasting background will make an ordinary photo breathtaking.

I may edit in some more information into this post later, as I think of it.

Plus I’m planning on adding a part 2 soon,  introducing Flash Photography and how to control the background with it.

I don’t mind you linking to my post, or blog. However please don’t copy it without asking my permission first.

this red flower was sure Standing Out among the yellow flowers in a friends garden.

I did something  a little different this time, with this photo.

The effects were all captured in the camera, my hopes were to make it appear as if it’s a painting.