Deep Focus
Keep important foreground, middle-ground and background action legible so the viewer can interpret relationships across depth.
What it does
Deep focus keeps multiple significant depth planes acceptably sharp, allowing dramatic information to coexist instead of arriving through separate close-ups. Gregg Toland’s work in Citizen Kane makes foreground figures and distant action part of the same argument about power, childhood and exclusion. His photography in The Best Years of Our Lives similarly lets one person’s predicament unfold alongside another person’s response within a shared composition. Some celebrated deep-focus images use optical or compositing methods, so do not assume every example came from stopping down a lens alone. Wider lenses, considered focus distance and sufficient light are useful practical foundations. Stage actions so the audience knows where to look without losing the freedom to compare. Avoid it when background sharpness competes with a deliberately private moment, or when the scene contains depth but no meaningful relationship between its layers.
The prompt
Replace [Subject] with what you are shooting. Everything else is deliberate: the gear, stock and lighting are what push a generator towards this look.
Works well in
Midjourney, FLUX, Runway
Pairs with
The Prompt Atlas
Every prompt here is a starting point. The Prompt Atlas is the full system: hundreds of production-ready prompts organised by outcome, with the reasoning behind each one so you can adapt rather than copy.