I have to admit I was playing with shallow depth of field because I had just bought a fast 50mm lens. I was looking for only the thinnest slices of focus and playing with that technique often at the expense of the image. I believe, however, that when you get a new piece of equipment or learn a new technique that it is important to play with it in a kind of obsessive way as long as you can eventually pull back and find the best ways to use that technique or equipment. I suspect that this image would have been stronger if I had allowed the beam and the bold in the foreground to remain in focus. I do, however, really like the way your eye gets drawn into the frame. There is a strong sense of depth and I find my mind wandering down that steel shaft into the frame to see what is hidden down there. I like the indistinct, unknown nature of the photograph, we want to know, we want to see what’s there but we can’t. It’s that tension that keeps us looking.
For a different look at this kind of farm equipment check here and here.
-Russell Berg
