Photo Credit: Michael Grecco

Selective focus is used artistically to bring the viewers attention to the areas of the image that are in focus and to downplay the areas that are not. I use selective focus to deemphasize an object or storytelling device in the image that might be too literal, obvious, or prominent if it is in sharp focus.

Selective focus is used a great deal by photographers who shoot with 4x5 or cameras that have the ability to tilt and shift the lens. As the lens tilts, you are able to control what is in focus, and what is out of focus, in the frame. This capability is essential when disparate parts of an image have to be in the same sharp focus, as in a group portrait. It allows you to keep everyone in the focal plane you choose, the only trick being that multiple subjects must be strategically placed so they are in a flat plane. (See diagrams below.) That plane can be at any angle, up/down, left/right, or forward/back.

When using a very shallow depth of field, you can use the tilt feature to isolate focus on just a small portion of your subject. For example, if you want to create mystery in a full-length image of a man standing by the edge of a forest, you could knock everything out of focus except his eye. To achieve this you would tilt the camera backward at the top and forward at the bottom to throw both areas out of focus. If you also give the lens a slight sideways tilt—left to right movement—you can now get just the eye in sharp focus. You need to use very little depth of field to accomplish this.

Focal length has an effect on depth of field, along with aperture. The only controls that a photographer has over depth of field are magnification and aperture. If you are using a long, focal length lens at the same working distance as when imaging with a shorter one, it will increase the size of the subject on the image plane relative to its size in real life. That increases image magnification, which in turn decreases depth of field. Long lenses compress the background, bringing it “up closer” while making it less sharp. I often use long lenses when I have to photograph someone in front of a busy or confusing background. By softening the background, I create a suggestion, an impression of that background, without it being visually distracting.

The main image (shown above) is an example of selective focus where I used a camera with a lens that did not tilt and shift to throw objects out of focus. I was hired to reshoot Jesse McCartney for publicity and advertising because his management disliked the shoot he’d just done for his record packaging. The challenge was to shoot as many different images as possible before my assistant and I had to get on a plane to Seattle to do a shoot for ESPN The Magazine that afternoon. We started early, shooting him on railroad tracks and against some graffiti. In the middle of the shoot, we had an old car brought in as a prop. I created this shot by using the windshield as an object that cut through the frame, interrupting it. Since the edge of the windshield closest to me was so far away from him, it naturally was not in the same plane of focus as he was, and it became soft—which was what I was looking for. It gave me yet another variation in a day of shooting where many different looks was a good thing. It also became a graphic element in the image.

Michael Grecco's clients include TIME magazine, GQ, People magazine, ABC, HBO, IBM, GE, ESPN and dozens of other top companies in entertainment, business and advertising; his subjects include many international superstars and household names. The winner of awards from Communication Arts, Photo Design, AR 100, the New York and Los Angeles Art Director Clubs, and numerous others, Grecco teaches many photography seminars across the country each year. His book is available from Cord Camera, as well as other retailers.