A Little Trickier

This picture is a bit more tricky – I took it with a 200mm lens on a Nikon FM3 camera with T-Max film. In those days (c. 1996) this was considered a “fast” film, which means the aperture would be pretty well shut down tight, causing the back ground to be in focus. However, in this setting, the Anasazi ruins in southwestern Colorado, the light was low, and the aperture had to be opened wide, helping to blur the background. The picture is of a Native American park ranger, with ruins in the background. We had to climb a wooden ladder up a cliff and use some ancient hand holds in the rock face to get here.

Notice how the slightly out of focus background makes the portrait of the ranger "pop out" at you.