I made three quick photos of a student yesterday in class to help the students see two things they can do very quickly to introduce a character into the story.

We preferred not to have a posed portrait but rather something of her in action. Therefore, I did not take a photo to illustrate that point but did want to explain lens choice and aperture.

The first photo has a shallow depth-of-field of ƒ/1.4. Again, the emphasis is all on the lady.

Nikon D4, 85mm, ISO 12800, ƒ/14, 1/100

I then just stopped down the aperture to create a greater depth of field so that the map was much sharper.

Now I told the class that my purpose was to show the student in a class with photo students, and they would then leave the course and do stories around the world.

Nikon D4, 14-24mm, ISO 9000, ƒ/14, 1/100

For the last shot, I changed the lens to a wide-angle and then had the class behind her. We talked about how we can then introduce her in our story this way as well.

All three are good photos in their own right, but the question was which one does the best job of helping tell the story.

Today I will show them another technique, so stay tuned for that example.