If you’re taking photos of the kids and one child is in focus but the other three are not and you want to prevent blurry photos, start thinking of an Imaginary Glass Wall–the name of this photo tip. And then after thinking the words “imaginary glass wall” think Aperture.
Brian and I love low F-stops (2.8. 2.0, 1.8 and even 1.4 at times). What does this mean? The lower we go in our F-stop, or Aperture, the more blur we have in our background. A lot of old school photography will say you should have an F-stop of 8.0 to 16. This means that every thing in the picture is in focus. But we think the creativity and story telling comes from what we choose to focus on and not focus on.
See the image below. Mom and baby’s hands are in focus, but the baby nursing is way out of focus because it was a very low F-stop, or in other words, low Aperture. The F-Stop was a 2.8 at least. The story of this image is about the intimate, touching points and connections between a nursing baby and their mother.
Me Ra,
Thank you so much for all your pointers with these holiday photos. I was rolling on the floor laughing when I read your bribing post yesterday—everything so incredibly true!! I loved your description today about the glass wall. I can’t wait for my DVD 2–it is in the mail. Thanks again for staying so true to mommies and everyone out here who want to take better pictures.
I love to shoot with low aperture as well but often have trouble with not having the correct object or person(s) in focus. I kept wondering where you were going to go with the “glass wall” – BUT thanks you for explaining it so clearly – it really makes sense that way. This will really help with photos of more than one person!
Great tip as always! Makes perfect sense!
Thanks for all this, Me Ra! The glass wall is a great way to explain this to kids & families. Just wanted to know what you typically do when you have a group of 5 or more and they’re not all on the same plane (on purpose) and you want a more funky or staggered pose WITH the blur? Is that asking too much from the camera? 🙂 I love the DVD by the way.
Coolness! I will definitely remember the glass wall trick 🙂
Do you have any suggestions for getting a photo of a 15-year-old teenage boy with his 10-year-old sister…. God forbid that they actually touch each other, let alone cooperate at the same time!
Selective focus is one of my favorite tricks! Actually I think the reason I use it so much is that I like low light and NO tripod. (hate tripods!) So…you work with what you got! Actually I have always been drawn to images that have selective focus. This is a great tip that all photographers should try! Beautiful examples!