Photography Assignment #1 ~ Simple Depth of Field

One of the things I intend to do in this blog is to recreate some of the photography assignments I had during the classes I took. The first I've tackled is, as the name implies, a simple depth of field task. I've already been playing around with the quick-snap Auto-Focus features, but this is one of my first forays into going 100% manual with this new camera.

The original assignment was to take at least 5 objects, put them in a line spaced evenly, and then take 2 pictures - one photo focusing on the first object and the other photo focused on the last. The first time I did this project, I did it with a stupid subject like jars of paint. This time I planned out my shots better, hence the chess pieces on the chessboard, neutral backdrop, and focused lighting.

Additionally, the first time around on this assignment, all of the film I used was black and white. It wouldn't really be a good recreation if I didn't have that in mind and include that in my compositions.

I also tried the reverse, with the "black" pieces instead of the "white" ones. It really changed the look and feel of the picture drastically. Especially in the black and white versions.

I predicted I'd like the photos of the darker pieces better, because I tend to gravitate towards darker colors (like the blacks, greens, and blues of my blog designs didn't give that away). But I really liked the white pieces better, in both color and black and white. I liked how the shadows stood out more and how much greater the colors contrasted, even though it seemed when I was putting the scene together that the neutrals were too washed out.

This was fun, and I have more chess pictures to follow soon. I played a game against myself and took some pictures, playing with depth of field and lighting. But that is for the next installment of Experiments.