a different perspective

I rarely use shallow depth of field in my STILL photos. My original inspiration (on the white background) was botanical art prints, so intentional blur didn’t make sense, I wanted an accurate, almost scientific representation. The black background, however, is sort of begging for shallow depth of field. I am not sure how much I am going to heed the call. I want both my white and black work to feel like a cohesive body of work. And the shallow depth of field, just like a full page bleed, feel like something different. I have long felt that the strict constraints of STILL–found nature, minimally manipulated, no manmade objects, natural light only, bright white or pure black backgrounds–are a big part of what made STILL recognizable and ultimately successful. I share this with you to let you see into the creative process (in this case, the kind of decision making I am doing) as I feel my way into working with this still-new-to-me black background.

Out of curiosity, how you feel about the shallow focus?

echinacea/cone-flower close-up