Fifty-Two on Friday | Valleyview Alberta Photographer

It’s week nine of our Fifty-Two on Friday project!  This week’s theme is “Depth of Field (DOF).”  Not quite sure what that means?  Wikipedia defines it as the “distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear acceptably sharp in an image.”  That’s a pretty good definition.  DOF is one of the things that I love the most about photography and DOF can really change the look of an entire shot.  Use a shallow DOF and you will have a small area in your photo that is in focus.  In most cases, this can help draw the viewer’s eye to the subject.  Use a large DOF, and you will get most of or the entire image completely sharp.  This is great for landscape shots.  DOF gives you a lot of control over the outcome of your overall shot.

For most subjects other than landscape shots, I love shallow DOF.  I love smooth backgrounds or ones that have beautiful bokeh because of a small DOF.  The shallower your DOF, the rounder your bokeh will be.

I would have loved to take some photos outside for our project this week.  I tried to do this shot outdoors, but the slight breeze at night blew my candles out. 🙂  So, I moved my set-up indoors and captured this shot with a shallow DOF.

Next, travel with me to visit the amazingly talented Angie Papalas, Chicago Children’s Photographer and see her interpretation of this week’s theme.