This trio of Naxi farmers share a leisurely chat and several pipes filled with local tobacco.
I used my telephoto lens at 350mm, focusing on the man doing the talking and softening the men doing the smoking. It is a study of faces and hands, gradually growing sharper and more emphatic as we move into image. One of the most important aspects of the telephoto as a tool for expression is its ability to selectively soften certain areas of a picture while keeping others sharp. If we want to focus selectively, we open up our lens to its largest aperture and then focus on whatever we wish to stress. The lens does the rest as it does for us here.