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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Twenty Seven: Bringing far to near with the telephoto lens > Town Crier, Temse, Belgium, 2005
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15-JUN-2005

Town Crier, Temse, Belgium, 2005

This fellow stepped out of the 19th century to welcome us to the small town of Temse. I made this portrait of him from a distance, using the full length of my 432mm zoom because I wanted to use its shallow depth of focus to soften the contemporary building in the background as much as possible and reduce its prominence in the image. I later converted the color portrait to black and white, taking him even further back into the past. The black and white image removes the vivid colors of his uniform as well as a reflection of the blue sky in building's window.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ20
1/500s f/4.6 at 72.0mm iso80 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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Phil Douglis10-Dec-2005 23:23
Thanks, Jack. You are right -- I've tried to express a sense of pride, tradition, and character in this image. You've read it well.
jack 10-Dec-2005 13:50
A character study, and a lesson. The study: the mustache and the wrinkles - he takes pride in what he does, and he takes it seriously. The lesson: whatever you do is worth doing your best.
alibenn08-Jul-2005 05:33
For sure, this image captures an expression and behaviour impossible if you were in his face with the camera. I metioned the alternative only to illustrate the point that depth of field also decreases the closer you are to the subject, as displayed in macro work, where depth of focus can be virtually nothing when you are in close to a subject, an example of which is this:http://www.pbase.com/alibenn/image/43960994
Phil Douglis08-Jul-2005 04:20
Thanks, Alister. I am glad you linked the discussion we have been having about the depth of focus on your shot to this telephoto shot. Since this gallery is all about telephotos, some acknowledgment of selective focusing is essential, and this is the image I chose to feature for that purpose. Thanks for your kind words on it, and for adding the info about the relationship between the focal length of the lens and the depth of field (also known as depth of focus). And yes, you can make a picture with similar depth of focus as this with a wideangle lens, but you would have to be right in his face, and then his expression would be entirely different. He did not even know I was shooting his picture at this moment. Such is another advantage of a telephoto lens!
alibenn08-Jul-2005 04:13
This leads on from our discussion on my image at:
http://www.pbase.com/image/45852483
alibenn08-Jul-2005 04:09
This is an excellent example Phil of the relationship between focal length and depth of field. On a long lens 300-500mm the depth of field even at f5.6-f11 can be very shallow. This photograph could also have been achieved with a wide-angle lens, say 24mm at close range, but at f5.5 the detail in the BG would be greater, a very large aperture of f2.8 or even less would be needed to get this degree of softness.

Aside from the technical aspects this is a nice, timeless image, something Europe is great for...Black and white being a clear choice.


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