Leaf

Spent about an hour today trying to find something to shoot. One thing after another just wasn't really working, but finally I saw this little leaf on the floor. I must have tracked it in after I was prowling the backyard with my camera. But there it was, just innocently sitting there.

I had been playing around with macro filter, so I suppose I was already all set up for the leaf. It's a pretty dark day out, and my house is really dark already, so I need to find somewhere where there was a lot of light. The kitchen sink obviously came to mind since it's right next to a window. Plus, the brush metal of it makes excellent texture.

My first couple attempts just didn't seem right. The depth of field was too shallow on the leaf at f2.2, but I really really liked the look of the metal behind the leaf. However, when I stopped down to f5.6 to get more of the leaf in focus, the metal got all sharp and boring looking. So how could I get the soft focus of the metal, while still getting the leaf sharp?

I could expand the distance between the leaf and the metal. This way, the in focus part would be farther from the part I wanted to blur, so I could use a higher aperture and greater depth of field to get the leaf in focus, but the sink would stay blurred.

What did I use to elevate the tiny leaf? A drill bit, of course.

I shot at f2.5 for the final photo, not much more depth of field than shooting at f2.2, but just enough that I was happy with it. And the metal stayed nice and blurred, so it was a win win!

Editing was not that extensive on this one. I tried to keep it mostly natural looking. I raised the white point but dropped the highlights, so in effect I kept the highlights from being blown out, but still got some brighter whites in there.  I also raised the clarity a tad as well as shadows a bit. Just to give a little more texture to the leaf.

See you tomorrow!