In case you’ve missed my other posts (here for August, here for July, here for June, here for May, here for April), I’m participating in a monthly blog circle with an awesome group of photographers from across the country, which we call Life By Lens.  I can’t believe we’re already into our sixth month! We seem to go back and forth over whether to do a theme or not, and we decided to try one this month. When we chose environment as our theme, I thought it’d be a piece of cake. I figured there were lots of ways to interpret it. I decided to incorporate the environment in my pictures…should be fairly easy, right? Apparently not. I took my camera along on three separate occasions to accomplish this goal. So often, we photographers use shallow depth of field, combined with background compression, which creates the blurred background (or bokeh). It keeps the focus on the subject of the picture, it looks really pretty, and I love the style, but it really doesn’t use the environment most of the time. It’s definitely a hard habit to break, and I found myself doing it even when I was consciously trying NOT to!

Attempt #1: The Playground
This was probably my most successful attempt. We went to the park one evening after dinner. I looked like a crazy person dodging other kids, running all over the playground trying to get some decent shots, but I’m used to it. My husband still sighs and shakes his head when I lie on the ground in public to get a good shot, and I’m sure it’ll embarrass my kids soon enough.

<img
I know the one of Clara in the swing isn’t really using the environment, but I love that shot, so I included it.

Attempt #2: The Apple/Peach Orchard.

We went to Larriland Farm in Woodbine to pick some apples. Because it’s still pretty early in the season, they only had one kind of apple, but they did still have peaches, which was exciting! We went in the late morning, which isn’t the best time, lighting-wise to take pictures. I really had to make a conscious effort not to blur out the entire background (and I still didn’t do as well as I wanted to!).

The first one is an example of me failing at using the environment. See the completely bokeh-ed background? You can’t tell at all where we are! I did a bit better with the other ones.

Attempt #3 Isle of Wight Park in Ocean City

This was the biggest fail(ok, maybe not a total fail, but I do wish I had more to show from this little shoot!), but I blame the waiter at the restaurant we went to beforehand. Our dinner took FOREVER, and we arrived at the park at 7:00. Sunset was at 7:12. So I got a couple shots, and I do like how the lines of the pier thing frame them, but I wish I had more pictures to show from this attempt.

<img
And just because it’s pretty…

Overall, this was a good learning experience for me. It’s definitely something I’ll think about more when I’m shooting in the future.

Hopefully some of the others in our blog circle were more successful than I was! Check in with Maria at Whimsy Photography Studio in Syracuse, NY here!