Broken Glass

[jeanneholverstott]

I struggled all day with WB due to the 95 degree heat/sun in Kansas CIty. Being new to the world of photography I finally went "auto" to counteract the "blue" tint my photos were being marred by. I learned, after the fact, that I needed to adjust my WB from "auto" to "sunny". Live and learn. This is a shot I captured on "auto", and I'm curious about the following:
1. Composition--Does the angle make sense?
2. Blur--Should the first pieces of glass been in focus, rather than the pieces in the background?
3. What are your thoughts about the shot in general? Any other feedback is appreciated.

(Thanks for looking and your feedback, in advance.)



AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D
ISO 200
50mm
0EV
f/9
1/320

[RichardTaylor]

Technical.
The door appears to be exposed correctly however the foreground is over exposed.
I feel you need a lot more depth of field. With a subject like this I would try a few different apertures (wide open, mid range around F8-F11 and closed down (F22?) and see which one works best.

Aesthetic.
The basic POV and comp is ok.
The over exposed out of focus foreground is a major distraction. Try cropping this area out and see how it looks.
With some subjects blurry foregrounds work however with this one I feel the glass in the foreground should be sharp (tat is an artistic decision.

If I have lots of time with subjects like this I will do a fair bit of experimenting with different apertures and focus points. It is a good learning exercise and you can apply the principals to subsequent photographs.

[SwissJon]

Personally I'd like to have seen you open the lens up to it's maximum f/1.8 and focus on a single shard of glass close to the door, or just peeping out from under it. Perhaps moving the camera closer to make the subject more prominent in the frame.. As it is, it's not clear if you want the viewer to look at the glass, the gap or the door.

It makes sense to have things close to you out of focus if you want to create a sense of depth.. In this case you're looking over a field of glass under a door frame from where they came, so it certainly makes sense. Don't forget, there's nothing preventing you from manipulating your subjects, so you can move its of glass around to suit the picture.

Again, with a f/1.8' the front portion and rear of the door will be out of focus, drawing the viewers attention to the section you want them to look at, like the caPITal letters in that word draws your attention to something (the word pit) they may have been aware of but not have noticed otherwise..

I think you should learn to shoot in RAW format, you can make far better corrections to your pictures afterwards than if you shoot JPEG. These days I shoot exclusively in RAW, and don't touch JPEGs until I want to share the picture.