Assignment: An Approach to Aperture

August 04, 2021  •  Leave a Comment

Thanks to recent rains the forests around Flagstaff are open again for recreating. I head up the mountain to scout for my upcoming Flagstaff fall photography retreat and to play with aperture among the aspens. The day is warm and mostly sunny. The canopy of tall pines and aspens sways in the breeze but on the forest floor I can feel only the occasional wisp. I walk a few yards off trail, lay my head on a rock, close my eyes and listen. Breathe. Feel. Some time passes before I am fully arrived in the space and ready to begin seeing.  

We first learn that aperture controls our depth of focus which, while true, is only one facet of its function. Last week I played around with the myriad moods that the positions of sun, subject and lens create relative to each other. Turns out aperture can be just as moody. Many of us are taught to focus on our subject and select an aperture that will keep in focus what we want, and keep out of focus what we don’t. The stand of aspens I selected presented a hitch in that old get-up. There isn’t really one obvious subject to speak of at least in terms of stationary object. 

Cue the angels singing and the golden rays of pure enlightenment… Maybe not quite so dramatic but this seemingly mundane self-assignment illuminated an altogether unexpected light bulb in my brain. Subject need not be an object. Subject can be movement, a current that catches your eye and draws you into, through and around the frame back to the beginning like a lazy river. In contrast to the satisfaction of a definitive and pin sharp subject is the subtle joy of a soft eye free to wander and ponder. Both approaches can lead to exceptional images yet wildly different emotional responses in the viewer. And it is this exact quality that is at the very heart of all intentioned image making. 

Let’s look at the three images in order as they relate to this new idea of subject and emotional response. The first image was captured at f-2.8 with the focal sensor on the furthest right tree which is also the closest in the scene. My eye naturally moves left (deeper into the scene) as things get softer and eventually all the way left (shallower in the scene) as things get sharper again. My eye is drawn back to the beginning, to the sharpest, nearest furthest right tree and around I go again.  There is no subject, just movement. No beginning or end. Just space. An openness to interpretation. 

The second image was also captured at f-2.8 but the focal sensor was placed on the most central tree which is also the furthest in the most prominent collection of trunks. My eye feels less free to move about the frame. It tries but is almost immediately drawn back to the sharper tree since everything around it only gets softer. The motion is one directional; straight into the frame. The feeling I get is contemplative as I am asked to hone in and concentrate on one thing, be that in the scene or within myself. 

The third image was stopped down to f-11 to render much more of the scene in focus while maintaining optimal sharpness. (Side note: I also shot this scene at f-22 and the sharpness under the focal point was surprisingly diminished. I’ve always known that was a thing but never pixel-peeped quite like this. I would not recommend shooting at such a high f-stop if at all avoidable!) My personal sensibility finds very little about this image very interesting at all. There is just too much in acceptable focus for my brain to decipher a coherent story or definitive feeling. I have heard it said about jazz that it is all about the notes you don’t play and I think something similar is true here. This image may be more destined for a botany field guide than a living room wall. 

Thank you for investigating this topic with my images and me and good luck in the field with your own intentional image making!

 


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