This pretty flower is an Iris reticulata.
While I was taking photos, I noticed signs of rabbits in the garden but didn’t think twice about it. Instead, I focused on the pretty purple flower.
I wanted something unexpected so I added a tiny miniature woman.
Since it’s not yet Spring and most everything is still dead, the background isn’t very attractive. I don’t care for the pale tan color.
I decided to change the angle of the shot. That’s how I got an interesting blue background. What a difference that made!
Did I use Photoshop to achieve the background? No. It’s all about depth of field.
The background is actually pretty ugly. Here’s a zoomed out shot to give you just a little bit of perspective. Can you guess what it is?
It’s a blue tarp I’m using to cover part of my garden.
Back to the significance of this flower… it’s the only one that wasn’t eaten by the ravenous flower eating rabbits.
Camera: Big Bertha (Canon 5D Mark II)
Lens: 100 mm
Date: March 2015
Tips: If you don’t like what you see, change your perspective.
big bertha's adventures 
Beautiful.
This is fantastic! I just started – over last month – learning to use manual mode on my camera. Assuming you used extremely high aperture to create high depth of field? I’m just starting to learn about dof. What shutter speed and aperture? So far I have only taken night shots playing with very low aperture and ss. Can you share how you do such good shots of close up objects with nice blurred background?
Thank you for reading the blog and commenting. I’m impressed you’re doing night shots– they took me a long time to learn! I went back and labeled all the photos with the camera settings. I’ll try to remember to post the camera settings on future blog posts.
Additional notes: I was lying flat on the ground, very up close to the flower. When I didn’t like the background, I just adjusted my angle.
You might want to try experimenting with a string of Christmas lights. I found it very helpful for the educational process. https://bigberthasadventures.com/2014/03/18/random-object-wednesday-lights-camera-bokeh/
I also found this nice article that explains things better than I could!
https://photographylife.com/how-to-obtain-maximum-bokeh
Denise
Thanks. I will do some playing around with close up objects. Feel free to follow my blog as well would always welcome any tips. Thanks Denise.
Brian.
I’m now following! The blog template showcases your photos well. I had a hard time selecting a WordPress template. You chose a nice one.