Overcoming photographer’s block – experimenting with depth of field

“I used to take photographs.”

“Really?”

“Yep. When I first moved here I used to go out with the camera all the time. Photographed it all now, though. There’s nothing left to photograph here.”

This was the conversation I had a few years ago. I was sitting in a pub at a seaside resort in the south east of England. I’d been taking photographs and I was checking through them on the back of my camera. Noticing what I was doing another customer struck up a conversation with me. This was the end of our conversation before he finished his drink and headed home.

I remember thinking at the time how sad that was. In my mind there is always something worth photographing; something different, something deeper. Since then I have made it a bit of a mission to try and encourage people to re-engage with their photography.

This is one of a series of posts on how to try to overcome photographer’s block and fall back in love with photography. Other ideas to I have explored include exploring your local neighbourhood as if on holiday there, and taking only black and white photographs.

Seeing the world in a different way

Photographing only in black and white shows the world in a different way – a world of light and shade, patterns and textures. It’s also a reminder that the camera sees things differently to us. The colour of light might be different and the camera captures movement in a very different way to our eyes.

Experimenting with how the camera views the world is a great way to re-inspire ourselves to take photographs. One way I have tried lately is to limit the amount of my photograph which is in focus. Typically we can see from the near to far distance almost all in focus. In certain circumstances our cameras see only a tiny part of the subject in focus – everything else drifts off into a blur. Read on to find out how this happens and how you can use it to create magical and mysterious images.

The techy bit

When we compose a photograph we focus on the subject either manually or on auto focus. But how much of the image will be in focus? This is down to something called the depth of field and is controlled by the aperture setting

Depth of field is the amount of the image in focus in front and behind the subject. This could be almost everything from close up to far in the distance or it could be just a tiny part of the image.

The depth of field is affected by the aperture – one of the three settings that controls the exposure of your image (the other two are the shutter speed and the sensor or film’s sensitivity to light). The aperture is the size of the opening in your lens that lets the light through to your sensor or film. It also affects how much of your image will be in focus. A small aperture which lets in less light means more of the photograph in front of and behind the subject will be in focus; a wider open aperture which lets in more light means less of the space in front and behind your subject will be in focus.

In and out of focus

I thought I would play with the shallow depth of field when I went out photographing recently. I thought it would be fun to open up the aperture so that very little of the pictures I took would be in focus. For this purpose I decided to use prime lenses (lenses with a fixed focal length) as these tend to have wider apertures than zoom lenses and the effect can be more dramatic.

A great subject for this technique are close-ups of flowers. That’s what I chose when I went over to Hill Gardens on the northern edge of Hampstead Heath close to Golders Green in North London. They were once the gardens of a stately home and are now open to the public under the management of the City of London who also manage the Heath.

I have photographed the gardens before and this time I wanted to come in close and open the aperture wide just to see how my camera would view them. It was a windy day so sometimes it was hard to compose my images and capture the delicate flowers in focus as they were blown around in the wind. Having the aperture open wide did mean I could use a fast shutter speed though.

As a result I tended to choose subjects that were more static or sheltered. I then began to play with the idea of what needed to be in focus. The flowers or the railings in front of them? The ferns or their shadows?

Trying this technique gave me an opportunity to explore the gardens in a different way, to come in close and look for details. It also made me pay more attention to the background and foreground and how they related to each other and I had to think a little harder about the composition and some of the technical aspects of taking the photographs.

Your turn

So now it’s your turn. When you next have trouble thinking what you might like to photograph why not play with how your camera sees the world? Open the aperture up wide and look at it in a different way.

If you would like more ideas on how to fall back in love with photography check out the ideas on my blog here.

Overcoming photographer’s block

Or why not enrol on my new course all about overcoming photographer’s block? An hour and half of videos full of practical ideas on how to re-inspire yourself. Includes practical exercises to get you out and about with your camera.

Best of all, it’s ***free*** until the end of September 2026.

Click on the link below to enrol.