Depth of Field & Motion Assignment

My first shooting assignment for my photography class involved depth of field and motion.

We had to take a series of photos where we focused on different aspects of the scene, basically starting in the front, moving to the middle, the back, and finally a shot of the entire scene in focus.

I opted to photograph a small section of landscaping at my parents’ house where a down spout drains into some rocks.

Here is my series of photos…

We also had to take two other shots where a portion of the shot is in focus and a portion is out of focus. While I was at my parents’ house, I came across this spider web covered in water droplets…

And of course, the standard focus in the center of a a flower shot…

The second half of the assignment was to capture motion. We had to take a few shots so that we implied motion by a blurred image, and we had to take a few shots where we froze the motion in mid-movement. I opted to take a photo of Lexi in her pool, shaking the water off of her with her face blurred (the water drops flying off of her also fit for the freezing of a moving object)…

For the second half of the assignment, where I had to freeze motion, I opted to photograph a dripping faucet. My counters are grey and it didn’t provide the best background, so I opted to put a mirror behind the faucet for better contrast…

I also included this photo, which was actually taken with my old point and shoot camera. I took it when The One and I were on our cruise back in January. It is from Grand Cayman…

There are a few other techniques we learned for capturing motion that I didn’t have time to do (nor do I have the equipment for one of them), so I’m hoping to have the opportunity to practice a bit more with motion shots in the future.

So, what do you think of my first attempts at photography?