As part of my ongoing project of self-improvement – or at least, forcing myself to climb out of my normal groove occasionally – I decided today to abandon my usual “f/8 and be there” approach, in favour of a wide aperture and selective focus. It’s not the first time I’ve tried this, but it is the first time I’ve managed to capture a set of selective focus images that pretty much fulfil the vision I started out with, so I’m quite pleased with myself. But before I get too engrossed in polishing my own ego, I must confess to having chosen a subject which I knew would work in this kind of shot: astrantia flower heads look a little fuzzy in real life (even when you’re wearing your glasses), so a shallow depth of field suits them.
I wonder what they would look like at f/32 on the light pad…?
Anyway, parking that thought for now, I think this meets today’s brief, in that these flowers are definitely ephemeral. And the moment was the one in which, having knelt on the patio in front of this plant, pre-set my focus, and then moved myself and the camera very slowly and minutely backwards and forwards, watching different elements of the flower heads move in and out of focus in the viewfinder, I decided that this was the perfect expression of what I was trying to say, and ever-so-gently squeezed the shutter button.
If you’d like to see the colour version, it’s here.
