In the next month or so, I’ll be starting up a beginners course in using a digital SLR camera and how to take better photos.  I’d have thought that with all of the images I’ve taken in and around the Atlanta area, I’d have everything I needed to visually demonstrate the various concepts outlined in the course.  But that wasn’t the case.  To fill in the holes, I placed a casting call on a popular modeling site; Rachael Boone answered the call and the shoot was scheduled.  Two of the concepts we shot were lens perspective and the effects of aperture on the image.

We started in a small square in the Roswell Historic District that’s quiet, has fairly low foot traffic and shops that show in the background. Rachael posed so the shops were to her back and I started across the square from her using a long focal length lens.  The lens perspective effect is seen by keeping the subject, in this case Rachael, the same size in the frame and shoot with a consecutively shorter focal length lens.

This series demonstrates the effects lens perspective has on images.  At 400mm, the image shows the effects of lens compression and it looks as though Rachael is directly in front of the shops.  As the focal length decreases, the images start to show depth and finally at 24mm, it looks as though the shops are very far away.

The lens aperture used to create an image has large effect on the image too.  It creates the depth of field, the area in the image that is in focus, in the image.  Depth of field can bring the total image in to sharp focus or allow the photographer to keep only the subject in focus and thus keep the viewers attention there.

In these images, at the shallow depth of field an aperture of f/2.8 creates, the foliage behind Rachael has a pleasant blur and the viewers attention is drawn to her great smile.  An aperture of f/27, creates a large depth of field and adds the probability that the viewer will glance at Rachael but then start scanning the image to see what else may be in it.

These are just small tastes of what will be covered in the class.  I’m looking forward to starting it up and transferring some of the knowledge I picked up as commercial photographer over the years.

I also want to thank Rachael for helping me in creating these images.  She made my job much easier!  Stay tuned for more info about the “Introduction to DSLR Photography and Taking Better Photos” class.