Attempting Depth

[juliema]

I'm trying to practice on achieving more depth in my pictures and this is what I came up with today at the park. I'd love to hear what people think. :)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v94/maddiebud/juliemastbrook1-1.jpg

XTi camera
15-55mm kit lens set to 38mm
Tv 1/15
Av f/32
Iso 400

[netbymatt]

Looks like you've got the technique down with the small aperture. One thing to be careful about, if you've got a lot of depth in your photo, make sure that it's not taking away from the subject. In this photo, the railings going every which way are taking my eye away from the leaf (I think) that's in the foreground.

[juliema]

Thanks Matt. I really appreciate your feedback. :)

[jiminyClickit]

juliema, Welcome

Also experiment with and notice the difference in placing your seed pod in Sun, against a shadowed background. Viewer's attention is drawn to lighter and sharper subjects.

[AdamJJF]

Hi there...This is my first critique so bear with me.

I would echo what everyone else has said regarding placing the objects in the sun as well as being wary of distracting details in the background. The railings do tend to draw the attention away from the subject. Also, if you move the subject into the sun, you can use a faster shutterspeed so the background isn't so much brighter than the subject, this would also give you more vivid background colors. I'd also reduce ISO to 200 or lower if you can.

An additional change I'd make to add a little more depth would be to rotate around the subject a little to the left as to include more of the railing extending away from you (assuming there is more railing extending away from you), and eliminate the poles and additional railing to your left..

Just my two cents, hope I helped.

[KodiakStar]

I think a good example of a shot with depth is by Nieton21 in the latest assignment thread:
http://digital-photography-school.com/forum/showpost.php?p=119475&postcount=44

It's busy but really works!

For your shot, the location of them in the bottom left corner, for me, is a little too out of the way. I'm not much of a "rule of thirds" guy, but I think it would help for a shot like this.

I don't know how they look on the full size shot, but they also seem to have a slight blur to them, would be nice if they were a bit brighter and sharper. One thing you could play around with as well would be using a flash to help fill in some light to make them stand out more.

What type of metering were you using? Spot?