We've spent a lot of time discussing the portrait and macro (face and flower) setting on our cameras. This controls the aperture and creates more of a blur in the background that helps faces and objects stand out in a photograph.
You proved to me on the last Valentine project that you've achieved the ability to take focused portraits and proved that you also understand how it is an important aspect of a photographers job not only take an aesthetically pleasing photo, but to also make our subjects look good.
Since we now know that it is the aperture that controls focus in a photo. For a portrait or close up of an object we want a shallow depth of field (focus on one thing and everything else blurred).
What happens when you want the majority of your photo to be in focus? For example a landscape scene that covers miles or terrain or a large group photo where you want to keep everyone in focus. You use a small aperture or in other words less blur. (on a point and shoot or most cameras this is normally presented by a picture of a mountain)
So how are we going to practice?
Well my kids are obsessed with these I SPY books right now. A genious idea where they photograph a bunch of objects and then list images to search for in the scene. All objects on the page are in focus. This is what creates the challenge because it is really hard to find objects when there is so much going on the page. You don't want blur because that would direct the eye to the foreground and would help distinguish the object being searched for.
Your assignment is to come up with an I SPY scene. (you may work in groups of up to 5 people) together you must design the scene and then photograph the scene in landscape mode (small aperture), working on keeping all of the objects in focus.
(tip for aperture, the more light you have, the easier it will be to use a small aperture. So you will have the best luck photographing these types of scenes outside)
I've attached a couple sample scenes from the books for ideas, but come up with your own and have fun.
Once you have the photograph, we will print them and you can decide on the objects the kids will need to find. We will then take them to the kindergarten classes and you can observe first hand how difficult you made your scene as you watch the kids search.
