This is something that has come to my attention while surfing flickr. More than once, I’ve seen people refer to as depth of field what I had learned to be known as selective focus.

The difference is, an image displaying a shallow depth of field is said to have selective focus. The background isn’t in focus, or blurry, which draws more attention to the subject, which is in focus. It’s usually shot wide open, an f-stop of 1.8-5.6. In actuality, an image with good selective focus is showing a shallow depth of field.

On the other hand, an image with great depth of field is shot at an smaller aperture, such as f11 and higher, which results in the subject and background being in focus. This is good for shooting landscapes or if you want to emphasize perspective.

selective focus: the background is blurry

depth of field: the pillars in distance are still sharp

I don’t thing I’m being elitist or anything, I just have a peeve with people using the right terminology for things, or rather, more specific. Otherwise, it can get rather confusing. Or maybe it’s just me.

WordPress finally fixed it where I could import my old posts from the new Blogger, which I did last night.

I was looking through my old posts and found a quiz I had taken back in June of ’05. So, I decided to take it again to see if the results were any different.

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

Last time I was 65% General American English and 15% Yankee. I think the difference is negligible, since on some of the answer choices didn’t include words that I actually say. I think the most Southern thing about my speak is that I say y’all. However, y’all should not be exclusively attributed to the American South, because it has an equivalent in French, which is vous.

I didn’t plan on this weekend being very eventful, for me. However, when my sister’s friend Teresa came to visit from Tennessee, when went out to eat on Friday and took a trip to Pensacola Beach on Sunday. There were a few stressful moments, but we all ended up having lots of fun.

Teresa’s really interested in improving her photography skills, so she asked me for some tips. I realized that I knew more than I thought. We dined at Original Oyster House. The food was absolutely amazing, our waitress was awesome. We got extra food and free dessert. The place is on this miniscule strip of land in the Mobile Bay. Look at out my flickr map to see what I’m talking about.

Of course, I took lots of photos, which I posted on flickr. Check them out.

Man, I am so tired right now. I guess it’s from getting up early yesterday after a few hours of sleep and then going all day. Such is the price of fundom.

In other news, I purchased my plane ticket to New York last night. This will be my second trip there, again in May. It’s gonna be great.

Kaiya, age 4

Kids are so great (most of the time). They’re the best models, at least. So fun and charismatic. This is my friend’s daughter. She just turned 4 a few days ago.

So, I just ordered a new telephoto lens for my camera. I plan to use it to shoot a friend’s wedding that’s in a few weeks. A friend of mine from high school noted me on Facebook asking if I could do a photo shoot with her for a poetry album that she has coming out. This is great, because I can earn some cash and get a chance to practice with the new lens before the big day. I was going to get a new flash as well. However, the one I was looking at purchasing is actually less powerful than the flash that’s installed on my camera. I rarely used my flash anyway, because I learned to shoot without one, so it’s no serious handicap. Also, I don’t want to have to go through learning how use it. I’m definitely more confident without it.

The funny thing is that I only took up photography because we had to have a minor in the academic program I was in. Since then I’ve developed a real love for it, and people seem to like my work. That’s a plus. I don’t think I’ll be opening up my own studio anytime soon, or in the future, but the skill is proving to be quite useful to me. I will however, have to take better care of my equipment so that this doesn’t happen again. Good thing UV filters aren’t expensive. ^_^