Attached

[Pichead]

Each day I grab my camera bag as I head out the door for work. And, every day, at some point, I slip on my wrist strap before taking photos. The act of putting on that wrist strap, time after time, day after day was inspiration for this shot. I wanted to take that act to a ridiculous level, and the handcuffs popped into mind as being the appropriate symbol of how attached I am to my camera, and to photography.

For the shot I found a location in town with plenty of lights in the distance which would provide the desired bokeh at f/1.4. As I focused on the subject (me) in the foreground, it causes the lights in the distance to transform into out-of-focus orbs of light, as you see here.

I set up my tripod and placed a light stand on my mark, enabling me to get the appropriate focus. Once I had pinpointed my focus point, I locked it down by switching to manual focus mode. From that point forward, as long as I placed my camera directly over the mark, the parts of the photo I needed to be in focus, would be in focus.

Next I took the same light stand and placed on it a Nikon SB-600 Speedlight, pointing through a half-closed shoot-through umbrella. I originally had the umbrella fully opened, but it was spreading and softening the light too much. By closing it, the light only seemed to register prominently on the center part of the lens, which is what I was going for, allowing the edges to fade into darkness. Also, I initially placed a 'half-cut' CTO gel over the flash in order to warm up the light, but I ultimately preferred the cooler look of the bare flash, without the gel.

In order to not detract from the background, I had to shoot at a fairly slow shutter speed. Shooting 'faster' would have darkened the overall scene, including the lights in the distance - something I didn't want. But, despite the slower shutter capturing some ambient light on the foreground subject, I had to use an artificial light to correctly expose the scene. So, I turned the speedlight down to around 1/64th power (maybe even lower) and placed it approximately 5 feet from the subject.

I took a few shots before tuning everything in, then got back inside the warm car (it was pretty cold here tonight in Missouri...).

[RichardTaylor]

Love the idea and execution.
Thanks for telling us how you did it.

[Glayva]

Great Story and thanks for sharing a lovely picture and how to

[skiier3_9]

i like the shot - nice work

[amitadhikari11]

How to focus the subject and make everything in the background blurry as in your photo ? I'm using Canon SX130 IS. It's a very simple camera but it does have manual focus. But When I try to achieve the above effect I am unable to make the whole background that blurry. Any suggestions?
P.S. Sorry for noob question. I'm just starting =)

[yulchick]

Love the idea, great shot

[Pichead]

Originally Posted by amitadhikari11

How to focus the subject and make everything in the background blurry as in your photo ? I'm using Canon SX130 IS. It's a very simple camera but it does have manual focus. But When I try to achieve the above effect I am unable to make the whole background that blurry. Any suggestions?
P.S. Sorry for noob question. I'm just starting =)

Sorry for the late reply. This effect won't be related to the camera, but instead will be dependent on the lens you're using. To get this look, you'll need to use a large aperture (small f/#) lens, sometimes referred to as a 'fast' lens. In this instance, I used a Nikon 85mm f/1.4G lens which allows me to focus on something in the foreground and completely blur out the background. If you're new to photography, the kit lens you're using might go down to f/3.5-f/5.6, which isn't a large enough aperture opening to create much blur. If you want to step up your photography through a purchase, I'd take a look at a 'fast 50' which is a 50mm f/1.8 or f/1.4 lens which you can pick up for pretty cheap and which will have a huge impact on your photography...

[nicolas]

Originally Posted by amitadhikari11

How to focus the subject and make everything in the background blurry as in your photo ? I'm using Canon SX130 IS. It's a very simple camera but it does have manual focus. But When I try to achieve the above effect I am unable to make the whole background that blurry. Any suggestions?
P.S. Sorry for noob question. I'm just starting =)

Hi! The info given by Pichead is really important, but I'd like to point out that your camera might be a problem when trying to have that bokeh effect, as it has a smaller sensor size, the smaller the sensor, the bigger the depth of field will be.

You can learn more about sensor sizes here

Also, the main factors that affect depth of field are:

• smaller aperture of the lens: bigger depth of field.
• larger focal length: shallower depth of field.
• Smaller distance between the focused object and the camera: shallower depth of field.

You can find more information about depth of field here

[kuul13]

I thought I responded to this.. anyway, I loved this image of yours.. It very well tells my story too It is always with me, even when I move from one room to another LOLZ! You know what, I have 20 month old', I don't want to miss any shot of her's