Depth of Field

I'm looking out of the window and the rain is pouring down and washing away the frost. It is still nearly dark at midday. So I thought I would cheer up by looking at a picture taken on the beautiful island of Thassos.

I am always stressing to my students that they should not get too hung up and obsessed by the importance of depth of field. Well, here is a shot that gets much of its visual interest from the fact that I have deliberately limited the depth of field.

I used a very wide aperture in order to throw much of the picture slightly out of focus . Why?

Well, when I looked at this scene I was reminded of a painting by one of the French Impressionists, Claude Monet. I was trying to achieve a sort of 'mystical', soft feel to the image. Of course I did take other pictures with smaller apertures to get the whole scene sharp. But this is the picture I am most pleased with.

An 85mm lens was used at f2.8

Beside, it's an excuse for me to use a sunny picture on a gloomy winter's day.

The nights get shorter and the days get longer now!!!