A Little Bit About Aperture

This weekend, among other homework, I worked on my photography assignment which is due on Wednesday. Completing the technical requirements was easy; finding something interesting to photograph was the hard part.

The assignment was to take three photos of the same subject, but changing the aperture. The goal was to show how changing the aperture brings the background into focus.

I discovered that I needed something in the foreground that was very close to the camera — just a few inches away — and also to have at least several feet of open space behind with something interesting going on, but that wasn’t TOO busy.

If today hadn’t been so cold and breezy out, I might have tried to find something out-of-doors. Instead, I set up something a little abstract. It’s a very large Wedding Ring quilt that I pieced several years ago and then began hand quilting. I set it aside for quite awhile, but then picked it up and am trying to do a little bit several evenings each week. I’m slowly working my way around the lozenge shapes on the outer edge.

I arranged it on the futon in the TV room so it filled the frame, set up the tripod, and snapped away.

f 5.6, 1/6 second, ISO 200

f 11, 5/8 second, ISO 200

f 22, 2.5 seconds, ISO 200