One cannot always rely on lens alone for a nicely blurred background. Here, standing among the branches of a flowering shrub, the busy-ness of the shrubbery distracts from the woman's face (below). The plant details are too close to the camera (similar distance from the camera as her face) to be blurred out by the lens. So, enter Photoshop, and Gaussian Blur. I found a tutorial via google, and learned how to blur the background to the degree I wanted, and then to select which areas should be in focus. Now the face, especially the eyes are sharply in focus (above), really drawing attention to the face despite the flowers all around.