Differential focus

[Melanie Savage]

Hi, I would be really grateful for some help with the term differential focus, is it just a blurred background or is it a blurred something else you can see in the back ground (I hope I'm making myself understood!) I have a digital competition coming up and I'm not sure quite what the judge is looking for, and I would love to do a bit better!
I'll give a couple of examples of what I mean:
The blurred background

The blurred background with something you can see!

Am I barking up the wrong tree? Any help welcome, any ideas welcome!
Thanks for looking :)

[☮Lee Gordon☮]

Differential focus is keeping a small area in focus to allow you to blur the background (or foreground), so that the main subject is more obvious in the picture, so both your pics can be seen as differentially focussed

[limpet365]

I think it can mean both. It just a term to describe the fact that different parts of the picture have different focus.

[Melanie Savage]

@asrai @limpet365 Thank you both for your help, I was starting to get a bit confused! Now for the selection, that'll take a good long time!