Makin' Music

I once saw an amazing, heart-stopping photo taken by a US Air Force photographer at Little Rock Air Force Base. The photo was a close-up of a soldier's face as he aimed his M80. The photographer caught the soldier head on, as if he was the target. The result of that very short depth of field was a blurred background and a blurred foreground. Since seeing that photo, I wanted to use that effect in my own photography.

This photo is the first that I was successful in creating such a shallow depth of field, and it was an accident! You see, I was curious about that little black thing at the end of the guitar neck, so I shot a close-up of it so that I could see what it was once I got the photo onto my computer. It's some new-fangled tuner, and once I discovered that, I looked at the entire photo and saw that I had managed to capture the man's fingers in complete focus with the background and foreground blurred.