Shooting through the glass
A lot of the inspiration for writing these posts comes from either dicussing a photo a student taking my BPSOP online classes has submitted or from a fellow photographer that has taken one of my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around our planet.
This post comes directly from working with a photographer during my last workshop in Berlin; walking the streets in Pottsdam.
We were walking past a shop that had two doors. One wooden door with small panes of glass that was open wide, and a screen door that was closed and being used as the main door for patrons to enter.
This photographer was about to walk by because the screen door was closed. I stopped him and pointed out the fact that if he was to shoot through the screen and controlled the DOF, he might get something interesting.
It had never occurred to him to try anything like that, mainly because he never considered the screen as being anything but in sharp focus; since that’s the way his eyes were seeing it.
After reminding him that he was there to “stretch his frame of mind”, we set out to try and incorporate the screen into his thought process and add a ‘layer of interest’ to his photo.
I had him compose what he thought was an interesting composition made up of silhouettes, color, and light. Then I had him try different F/stops ranging from the aperture being wide open to closed down to F/22.
Well, I have to tell you that it was an epiphany for him, and wound up being something that he could use all the time; depending on the circumstances.
Here’s a few examples: http://joebaraban.com/blog/example/shooting-through-things/
The important thing to remember is to manually focus so you can have complete control. You’ll want to focus on the subject on the other side of whatever it is you’re shooting through and then use your aperture to try different degrees of sharpness.
It’s amazing that because of the digital era where practically everything is done for you, a lot of my fellow photographers have no idea that you can actually focus the camera all by yourself!!!
Visit my new website at: www.joebaraban.com, and check out my workshops at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.
JoeB
