In the Defense of Depth Article on TOP (re: Shallow Depth of Field Fad)

**Jay DeFehr** · 20-Jun-2012, 16:49

Originally Posted by mdm

Shalloe DOF is limiting to anyone trying to actually see and develop because it limits you to making pictures of some simple thing, you are essentially a product photographer, like Mr Sawyer. However if you are interetsed in the relationship between things and light and other things, like Strand, specially Sudek, Shore at his best, Friedlander etc, then DOF is something you use very subtly as a tool to focus the viewers attention where you want it and move their eyes around space.

Dof exists over a range limited at either end by equipment and technique, and is one of many elements of composition. Using shallow dof well is demanding, and as the image space becomes more shallow, dof becomes more exacting. That you can't use this effect with any subtlety or nuance is not evidence of its imitations, but yours.

**jnantz** · 20-Jun-2012, 17:03

in addition to shallow DOF i try not to focus anymore either ...
i'm not sure what the point is.
it is much easier to let entropy do its thing ..

**jcoldslabs** · 21-Jun-2012, 01:51

The merits of shallow DOF are up for debate, but shallow DOT (depth of thought) is never a good idea.

Jonathan

**sumo** · 21-Jun-2012, 04:29

Isn't it all a matter of taste? Is it wrong to enjoy thin DOF photos or indeed, photos where everything is sharp?
Photography is an art and the most important thing is the final result. Whether you achieve what you want at F1.8 or F45 is not really relevant.
Do Monet's paintings suck because they're not as "sharp" as Renaissance era paintings?
Tastes change over the years. Art changes. So does photography.

The photographers who automatically go for the widest aperture (or for the most DOF) without thought for the subject matter or their personal vision are basically missing something. Photographers who aim for a certain DOF because photographers of the past photographing similar subject matter did are also missing something.

As a lot of the previous posters have said, its just another tool for people to use. Not all landscapes have to be perfectly sharp back to front and not all portraits have to be with shallow DOF. As photographers we should feel free to play with a certain photograph, exploring its possibilities. People who argue for one way or another saying one way is "better" or more worthy than the other are limiting themselves in my opinion, not only technically, but in their growth as an artist.

**Moopheus** · 21-Jun-2012, 04:43

Also, I think he is using historically mixed frames of reference. He forgets that for most of the time that cameras have been easily available to amateurs and casual users--i.e., since the age of Eastman--the vast majority of their cameras have been fixed-focus cameras with tiny lenses and wide dof. That was what most people used. But then you didn't really have that much control over it. If you wanted more, you had to get a better camera, and that didn't really happen in large numbers until affordable 35mm slrs became widespread. There was never a time when the methods of any of the photographers he mentions was related to the way amateurs took pictures.