Background blur and depth of field

In my post for the February Monthly Special, Ilan commented that a blurry background is one of the first styles of background most people use. That got me thinking that I should do a short post about depth of field, blur, and "bokeh."

I will make this short and sweet because I really hate getting mired in technical details, but I will give you a great link at the end of the post for more detail.

Depth of field and blur
Take a look at the photo above of two brothers. The younger brother in front is in focus and the older brother behind him has some (in my opinion, pleasing) blur. I hate turning photography into math homework, but I need to give a few numbers to illustrate a very simple point:

The wider the aperture, the more shallow the depth of field.

"Aperture" describes the opening through which light passes to hit your camera's sensor or film. The lens of your camera will indicate the possible values of aperture in "f-stops." I used a canon 24-70mm L lens for the above shot at an f-stop of 2.8 (its widest aperture) with a shutter speed of 1/50 sec and an ISO of 100. Aperture, shutter speed, and ISO pretty much cover the technical aspect of a photo, and if you already shoot with manual settings my guess is you are already more than familiar with how the settings work.

But if you usually just let your camera make all of the choices and maybe you are not always happy with the result, you may want to experiment with the aperture settings (provided that your camera allows it). Most SLR cameras (cameras that have interchangeable lenses), for example, have an "aperture priority" mode which gives you the freedom to choose the aperture but to let the camera worry about the shutter speed. If you set the f-stop at a relatively low number, you are more likely to get background blur than if you leave the decision up to the camera.

But I just have a little point-and-shoot digital camera, you say.
Even in that case, you still have control. Look at those little icons on your camera dial or menu. Here's a shot of some standard icons:

Let's look at three of the five icons above (yours may vary slightly):

• The flower is "macro" mode. It has the most shallow depth of field (i.e. most blurred background). The f-stop is probably 2.8 or slightly higher.
  
• The profile of a portrait is "portrait" mode. The f-stop is a little bit higher—probably 5.6 or 8. This should mean less blur than macro.
  
• The icon of a mountain is "landscape" mode. Now the f-stop is at its highest—maybe 11 or 16. In this mode, pretty much everything will be in focus.

My point is that you don't need to be taking pictures of flowers for "macro" mode or of mountains for "landscape" mode. Instead, think about depth of field when choosing a setting.

And now, for your word of the day: Bokeh.
Bokeh is an anglicized version of a Japanese word for blur. People use it to describe the quality of blur, especially in relation to different lenses. Higher quality lenses will usually produce better bokeh than low quality lenses. How does this help you? Not much. But it's good to know what it means when you hear it.

Want to know more?

A thorough technical explanation of bokeh and blur.

Interview with Brad Slade, Photographer for Seeing the Everyday Magazine

For Seeing the Everyday Magazine. "My mother has made bread as long as I remember, and the family remembers this was a good time to be with her. She always listened."

NOTE: All photos Copyright Brad Slade.

Marc: Tell me about how you got involved in the Magazine Seeing the Everyday?

Brad: An old friend, Daryl Smith, had been thinking of this magazine for a long time. We had done a few jobs together and he thought I would be a good fit for it. And as we talked about it, I became really excited about the idea of capturing the family and trying to show the everyday moments.

For Seeing the Everyday the Everyday Magazine. "We spend dinnertime with a different family each issue."

Marc: Seeing the Everyday has been described by one blogger as Saturday Evening Post for the modern reader. What do you think of that comparison?

Brad: You know, it’s interesting, because I always think of The Saturday Evening Post as a bit idealizing. We may be idealizing the family in a certain way, but we are more interested in celebrating the family in the nitty gritty of everyday life instead of trying to set up the perfect picture of what a family ought to be.

For Seeing the Everyday Magazine

Marc: How would you describe the look of the magazine and how does your photography fit into that look?

Brad: The thing that I like about the magazine is that without ads it looks clean and doesn’t get visually hampered, which makes the pacing work better. I have my own style and it is nice to have a forum for expressing it. I like to visually declutter and use selective focus to get to the heart of what’s going on.

Marc: You mentioned the lack of advertising in the magazine. A lot of people would say that you are missing out on a key source of revenue. How did you come to that decision?

Brad: Early on, we decided that we didn’t want the clutter that you get when you look at a small magazine with too many advertisements. But the biggest reason is that it tends to start to drive content, and with advertising we would be constrained and wouldn’t be able to say what we want to say as much.

For Seeing the Everyday Magazine. Don’t get mad, get the camera

Marc: Do you think other people should adopt your attitude toward advertising?

Brad: Well, that was a decision we made and I wouldn’t want to say that others have to follow it, but at the same time, I do think that advertising can overtake content. For example, a photography magazine that I subscribe to ran an ad on their cover.

That was one of the first times I’ve written a letter to the Editor, because to me, that’s one of those lines you just don’t cross. The same thing happens at college football games where even the waves are sponsored by local restaurant chains.

Marc: The magazine’s tag-line is “finding poetry in the prosaic.” How do you get inspired to do that as a photographer?

Brad: I think that’s how I’ve always thought. I think that’s what first drew me to photography. Even in the first photography class I ever took, it wasn’t like I wanted to take pictures of the Grand Canyon or something. I just liked looking around in my everyday life and finding the beauty there, because there is beauty everywhere.

For Seeing the Everyday Magazine. Don’t get mad, get the camera

Marc: Do you hope to inspire other people to the same things?

Brad: I think that we [at the magazine] have given up some things…I mean, I think when we started I thought this would be an opportunity to create some kind of an art piece. But I think that idea of creating “art” has given way to creating a really pro-family messeage, something we hope will be helpful to people in raising their own family. I would hope that people would be inspired to record their own family situation, but the biggest thing we want is to empower people to better.

Marc: What are your own sources of inspiration?

Brad: For me, personally, I love Wendell Barry and that whole school of thought around him. I love his thinking about bringing life down to the fundamental things and trying to appreciate the things that don’t cost money. Photographically, I have a lot of influences, but I wouldn’t know where to start.

"My son caught a snake."

Marc: How do you see your work in relation to trends that you are noticing right now in photography?

Brad: I remember coming out of school and feeling like I was kind of hip and had a look that was pretty cool, and then at one point I realized that it’s always going to be a game of catch-up if you try to figure out “what’s the look now?” And it’s not that I don’t pay attention, but at the same time, I have tried to steer away from taking pictures that might look super dated—and I’m not sure if some people will agree that I’ve achieved that. Some people might think that my use of selective focus is already dated to a decade ago, but…[laughs] But I think that in art, you always have realism and the abstract, and the classical and the romantic all battling each other, and in photography, too, those impulses compete. In my work, I try to balance the two.

For Seeing the Everyday Magazine As a young girl, Yi-Chiun would rarely talk, which left people around her thinking she wasn’t very bright. Her dad had faith in her, and with his encouragement Yi-Chiun recently finished her graduate studies at Harvard.

Marc: Maybe you can comment on some of your work, both for the magazine and on your own.

Brad: I have a project of my own that started as me wanting to share the life of my family, to preserve this little moment and help my grandkids and their kids to see what it was like to be a part of our family. But then I’d show people, and they’d get excited, and so I started to think about doing a book project or something.

"On a morning hike with my daughters."

Marc: Do you imagine putting text with the photos?

Brad: I’m toying with adding some journal entries, but more as an abstract visual element. I’m kind of taking inspiration from Henri Matisse and his Jazz book where he includes notes in his own handwriting.

Marc: What is your process in shooting?
Brad: I mostly shoot digital, except when I shoot black and white. In that case, I scan the film. But I am kind of ambivalent about digital. I don’t like the way highlights blow out in digital, and I worry about losing digital files, whereas I still have negatives that I took in my first photo class in ’77. I wonder about migrating digital images from format to format as technology changes.

Marc: Do you do all of the photography for the magazine?
Brad: Basically, yes, but one of my favorite pictures we have published is one that my Dad took of my Mom.

Photo of Brad's Mom taken by his father.

Marc: Did your Dad do a lot of photography?
Brad: He did. That’s really what turned me on to it. He and I had a Leica back in the day and would take a lot of pictures when we traveled. I remember in ’76, we were in France up on the fourth floor of a building and my sister threw the camera out the window.

Marc: The Leica?

Brad: Yeah, the Leica and a Rolleiflex.

Marc: Ouch.

Marc: Any advice for people taking candid photos of their own family?

Brad: Turn off your flash. Pay attention to the light. It seems like a lot of times people don’t pay attention to what’s going on with the light.

Marc: Of course, if people are using a little point-and-shoot and they turn off their flash, won’t they have a lot of noise in their photos?

Brad: Maybe, but I would rather have noise than flash. One more thing about taking pictures, is that I think you’ve got to be in love with the subject. I think it’s got to be more about the subject than about creating art.

Marc: Which I guess makes your home life a good subject?
Brad: I’m not saying that everyone has to take pictures of their families, but that you need to take pictures of what you love. Often, when I tell people that I take pictures of my kids, they think that’s not serious, that I ought to be taking pictures of landscapes or different things. But, you know, I love my kids way more than—I mean, I love landscapes, but I love my kids best of all.

The five-minute photo shoot

Since my posts have been less frequent lately, I wanted to hurry and do a "background" shoot. Just blocks away from my home and in front of an apple orchard sits a run-down fruit stand full of textures just begging to be used as a background. So I took Lucas for a very quick shoot amid freezing cold winds. The whole shoot lasted about 2 minutes. Better weather and more time would have been great, but neither of those was an option.

My conclusion: A short photo shoot is better than none. Try it out:

• Keep your eye out for a nearby location with color and texture (even a dumpster can fit the bill, or a school playground, or...)
• Don't worry about perfect hair. Keep it natural.
• A plain white or black shirt won't clash with the background.
• Shoot quickly and get out.
  

Here is a sampling of the results without virtually no retouching beyond cropping.

The stylized crop is actually my way of not showing that one sleeve was up and one down:

But on the other hand, the disheveled look suits his style.

If I had not told him to change into a white shirt, his clothes would have clashed with this beautifully textured shed.

Even a head-and-shoulders shot benefits from a good background. And speaking of basic shots...

Your standard mug shot à la school photos is way better with a real-world background.

So, go give it a try. And when you do, share your results.

February Monthly Special: Background

"We see your bum!"

What role does the background play in creating a good or bad photo? In my photo of children pointing at the graffiti on the backside of a statue (It reads: "On voit ton cul," which I have translated into the slightly less vulgar "We see your bum!"), the statue in the background actually becomes the central focus. Technically, I suppose it would be "middleground," or even ...Hmm. Not the best way to exemplify the theme. But technicalities aside, I wanted to look at the relation between the subject and the background. Here, we can see it quite, well, explicitly.

How much thought goes into the background in your photos? When I take group photos, most families have a strong sense of their ideal background. Trees. Mountains. Flowers. Almost always a scene of pastoral tranquility. Rare is the family that wants a portrait at a construction site. Look at a few of the photos around your home. What kinds of backgrounds do you see. Does the background add to or distract from the central focus of the image? Do you prefer a blurred background (a shallow depth of field) or a deep focus? How does color function in your backgrounds? What about texture? When we take snapshots, we don't always have time to think about background. But this month, I am challenging you to experiment with background. Scout out locations around your city. Pay attention to color and texture. Think about the meaning that a background adds.

Throughout the month, I will post some of my own experiments, hopefully an interview, and even a tutorial or two. If you're not a Photoshop user, this is a good month to participate in the Monthly Special. Have fun with it. And when you're done, post your results and link back here.