Photography rant here. If you’re not into that type of thing, feel free to scroll down and admire the pictures and leave. I won’t be offended.
When I first started out with photography, I was obsessed with bokeh. I love out of focus elements in the background and tack sharp subjects in the foreground. It just draws the observer’s eye into the photo so that they see only what I intend for them to see. I am literally putting focus on whatever I want and only what I want. My affinity for this photo style has driven me to buy expensive lenses that are able to have such a narrow depth of field, but now I feel like I don’t need it.
Shooting like this has made me incredibly lazy as a photographer. I don’t really worry about composition since I know that everything in the background will be a blurry mess anyway. I also rely on luck more often than not, since I’m fighting with such a narrow depth of field. Sometimes I just miss the shot just because the focus is a few millimeters too far or too close. So it’s time for change.
I’ve started to change my shooting style so that I can slowly stop using bokeh as a crutch. Almost none of my shots in my next post were taken on the widest aperture of my lenses for two reasons. One, the background played a very large role in giving context to the shoot. And two, this was probably the most anticipated photoshoot of the year, so I couldn’t risk missing focus on most of the shots.
This is going to be an exciting two weeks. Let’s do it.
Andy Chen Photography 