Creatively Correct

I'm reading a photography book right now called Understanding Exposure.  The author suggests that there are at least 6 correct exposures for every shot, but only one that is creatively correct. The idea is that you can switch your aperature to either tell a story, with the whole frame in focus, or have a single subject isolated in the foreground, while the rest of the frame is out of focus.  Similarly, you can change your shutter speed to freeze action or imply motion.  It's up the photographer to decide what is the creatively correct combination.

I decided to conduct an experiment today to test out this theory.  First and foremost, please excuse the mess in our garage.  It's a bit of a disaster, we have too many strollers and yes, by the way, we have swings nailed to the roof of our garage.  Best outdoor toy ever.

I used a step ladder as my tripod. I knew the shutter speed was going to get pretty slow and I wouldn't be able to hold the camera without camera shake.  I started as low as I could go on the f-stop with the lens I had, which was 3.5.  The corresponding shutter speed that my meter told me was "correct" was 1/160.  The action is frozen here and you can see their faces clearly.

Here they are at f/5.6 and 1/40.  You can see the action already at 1/40.

Next f/7.1 and 1/20

f/8.0 and 1/13

f/11.0 and 1/5

f/13 and 1/6

and finally at f/22 and 0.6 we've got two ghosts on a swing...

Truth be told I don't like any of the shots I took today.  But if I had to pick a creatively correct one here, it's gotta be at f/3.5.  Weeeeee.......

This would be a fun experiment to try on some big waves at the beach this summer.


In other news, Lillian has realized that her finger fits perfectly inside her nostril and she likes to put it there as much as possible.  Ben never ever ever picked his nose and really still doesn't much to this day.  I have no idea what type of prediction we can make from this disparity in behavior.