Barabas in front of a starry sky

Yesterday we celebrated Rbn's birthday a few days early, and Mischa and Admirer (my cousin and aunt) came to visit us for the first time, which we enjoyed very much! So nice to get to know one another a bit better, and seeing my aunt and dad talking together was nice!!

Since my last blip Admirer asked me an explanation of focus stacking, and since then Ive tried to come up with a shot that would explain it at once. So until an hour ago the idea didnt come up so I cot my camera out and started trying stuff out to experiment with the idea. This is what it turned out to be:

The shot is a focus stack of two shots. One with the focus on barabas who is about 45 cm from the lens. The other shot is with focus on the star map, approximately 75 cm away from the camera and behind barabas. The center of the picture is the focus stack. The two shots are blended together in PS using layermasks. The result is that "both" barabas and the sky are if focus. On both sides of the picture the star map shows as it was in the shot with focus on barabas.

Somehow I find the blurred sky puts a kind of strain on your eyes, trying to focus on something that cant be focussed on. Whereas the center piece is kind of easing and relaxing on your eye, in a way relieving you from the task to get everything into focus with your eye.