single photos fall leaves

Are the out-of-focus red leaves in the foreground a distraction, or

necessary to keep my nicely out-of-focus background? I think I shot

this one at F1.8, thinking that maybe having just the tree trunk

sharp would be an interesting effect. What do people think?

This shot almost works for me. However, at the F=Stop you were set for I would have tried to focus on a leaf instead of the tree trunk. Having the leaves in the picture makes it look like you wanted a picture of a leaf but that you got auto-focus stuck on the tree.

 

Give it a try and see what you think. You might disagree but that's what this is all about isn't it? What we like best may not be what others like.

 

Bye for now.

Out of focus leaves are too distracting.

One inportant principle to remember is that any amount of the background can be blurry but the object that is closest must be sharply focused. They sometimes get by with violating that in movies but seldom in still photos.