My first appreciation of photography happened at Whitney’s blog, The Ugly Green Chair. Her photos were unlike any I had ever seen before. Some parts of her photos were blurry while other parts were sharp. Years later, I learned that this “blurry background” effect wasn’t actually a Photoshop trick, but a camera technique. So I signed up for Photography 101 at CCSF. But the class moved really slow, so slow that a month into the course, we were still discussing the first week’s photo assignment. I grew impatient and read ahead in the textbook. I almost died from happiness when I read about shutter-speed and aperture, the two technical components needed to achieve that blurry background effect.
Anyhow, I found a great treasure during my last surfing expedition — a 30-minute Asos Summer School Photography 101 class with Michelle Bobb-Parris in which she talks about how to get that cool, blurry background effect! In the video, she covers: depth of field, focus, composition and framing, and light. It’s short and sweet, but loaded with wisdom and composition tips.
I made the following diagram to accompany her talk. It fits in around the 8 minute mark:
futura (osx native)
