Here is another example of one of the hands that I photographed. I used a portrait lens and because I haven't used a portrait lens before I have just had to experiment with it. The autofocus was a bit strange on this camera so I had to shift between auto and manual focus throughout this shoot. I really liked the focused photos in this photo and like the depth given by the unfocused background.
This is my contact sheet with the few images I have selected to edit.
Green circle - An image I would like to further use.
Red cross - An image I would not like to use.
Red F - The image is out of focus.
Red shading - The part of the image I would like to crop out.
Yellow question mark: An image I am unsure whether to edit or not.
Here are my final images:
I manipulated these images using adobe lightroom. For the first image, I applied a black and white preset, reduced the exposure and highlights. I then slightly increased the clarity and shadows of the image.
For the second image, I slightly increased the clarity and shadows of the image, then I lowered the exposure and highlights until I thought that the image was aesthetically pleasing I think the reduction in background highlights brought more attention to the focused hands.