Do we need to see everything in focus?
A few years ago around my 50th birthday, I found that I needed to wear glasses, not only for reading (those glasses I need since my 40th birthday!) but also for distant objects. Suddenly seeing everything in perfect focus, inspired me to make pictures out of focus. We do not need to see details, when the first recognition already elicits the effects that we desire. This is especially true for common sights, visual icons, that we recognize instantly and that have been photographed a zillion times.
When I looked through the viewfinder in front of St. Basil's Cathedral and focus was still on manual from some previous setting, I saw the colorful outline of the spires and thought this just perfect, just enough to get that familiar feeling. No need for detail, just the impression was enough to raise the emotions that we feel when recognizing an old friend or a common sight.
Recently, inspired by the Exhibition in Frankfurt's Staedel "Birth of Impressionism" with many paintings by Monet and other painters, I returned to that method. Impressionists have often simply put rough colours on the canvas to indicate a form, which appears abstract on close inspection, but gives rise to recognizable shapes when viewed from the distance. In addition, I had found a book on photography with the surprising title "Why it does not have to be in focus" - very encouraging!
I made a couple of photographs where I put focus on manual and deliberately set the picture out of focus. This has to be done carefully: with an open aperture of 2.8 or so, ideally using the DOF (depth of field)-control button if the camera has one, because otherwise the viewfinder might show you a picture out of focus, but the camera, accidentally on f/11 or similar, might shoot a perfectly fine, reasonably focused reproduction of reality.
The biggest hindrance though is, that I forget to use this technique when visiting those brilliant monuments like the Taj Mahal, where everybody is standing in line and strives to get the perfect picture. Setting the camera on the "wrong" manual focus seems to be such a waste of precious time then ... I have tried to produce the effect in post-production, but it does not work well; it looks flat - I have not found a reliable technique to reproduce a bokeh and I hate spending hours in front of the computer with photoshop layers and masks to produce a fake. So with German thoroughness, I guess, I prefer to go to all those places again ...
Of course, there are other ways to photograph landmark sights and show just a reminder or memory or abstract composition, by using reflections or motion blur:
not a highly irregular heartbeat:
Out of Focus ..
No comments:
Post a Comment