A release from sharpness

[Al Kaplan]

When the moment presents itself take the picture. The moment will never return! Later, on the editing table, squinting through a loupe, is the time to evaluate how effective the photo really is.

 

[cmogi10]

Ah, the last thing in the world I thought of was field sports.
I won't argue with you there but that's a different world then what I'm in.

Not to be contentious, but the people who buy my field sports pictures prefer the sharp isolation of the subject to the panned look, hands down. It's down to taste or the cult of the individual or just a desire to make an important moment appear to freeze in time, I don't know. But it is the clear preference by a very large majority.

I don't think the people who buy such photos or read SI confuse sports figures with chess players at all. Sports photos aren't "primed" to shoot at high shutter speeds, either. Much more the case that sportsshooters use wider apertures to isolate the subject, leading to fast s/s. Not always, but most of the time, depending on the shot.

 

[tomasis]

interesting subject. I love bluriness much as other things as flare, coma, vignetting.
Steve Williams has posted the best piece of all shown here to illustrate the topic. Lovely image, Steve! I sense the mood there.

I got Konica 90/2.8 recently. Some said that it is one of sharpest 2.8 90mm lenses. I got focussing problem the first time I did take this out. Though many design flaws, images came out interesting. Not because those are sharp or so but on the contratry it turned out be blurry images which seem to work well from artistic aspect 🙂

The last image was misfocused by mistake but it is quite luck that it got that misfocused otherwise I should try to focus again and I might never thought about what it looks like a misfocused shot of same composition. So that image learned me to think again that I shouldn't think about any damn rules. Just follow own instincts. If you like Alfred Stieglitz images, there's no discussion between us (you and me).

And, those for fun. Blurry or not?

Erikfive, this image looks like an oil painting portrait 🙂 Great portrait!

 

[Muggins]

I suddenly realised the surreal juxtaposition in this thread...

Steve is shooting with a Leica M, and trying for atmospheric softness. I, on the other hand, reading his post, started doing (dodgy) "photography" rather than (extremely dodgy) "snapshots" when I started playing with a No2 Box Brownie I bought for a beer. Here I am looking for ultimate sharpness (easier than you might think, even at 1/30th, when you have an f30 Waterhouse stop) with possibly the cheapest piece of kit available, and people who could have bought hundreds of Brownies for the price they paid for their kit are trying to get less sharp!

I guess that just goes to show what a wide spectrum photography encompasses!

Adrian

 

[PVia]

Or, as Lance Armstrong said, "It's not about the bike."

So many amateurs in all fields like photography, music, etc believe that if they own the best equipment it will somehow make them better artists. It doesn't. It may be nice to own such beautiful equipment and the feel of it in one's hands but it will not replace the need for an eye for composition, a point of view and all the rest.

I'm a musician and I play with some of the world's leading orchetsras and conductors, and I play a beautiful instrument, but if that instrument was smashed before a concert and I had to play a really inexpensive instrument made by Yamaha, I would still have my insight into the piece and my hands would be able to coax out the best tone possible. Would even the most rabid music fan know the difference? Maybe one in ten thousand would notice...

I bought a Leica because of the feel in my hands, the smoothness of operation, the utter joy from using a completely mechanical and analog machine. Does it make me a better photographer or make better pictures? No, it doesn't...it's up to the artist to decide what will be on film and how he wants to represent it. The tool is secondary.

 

[WoolenMammoth]

A photograph either creates a response from the audience or it doesnt. There are a 100 million tack sharp photographs that nobody will ever look twice at. And then people fiend over HCB's work, much of which is very soft. Concentrate on taking a good photo, any monkey can take a sharp one...

 

[Al Kaplan]

James and I mostly use Leicas because we like nice sharp pictures. That's him in the background with his M8. I shot this with a Bess L and 15mm Heliar. I find that just having a toy monkey close by is all it takes to get nice sharp pictures.
http://bp1.blogger.com/_b7J54W1JOoc/R6-aNOewOAI/AAAAAAAAA2E/yZk-qISsT6w/s1600-h/4.jpg

 

[johnastovall]

Photography has never been about sharpness. It is about light.

:angel:

 

[Sonnar Brian]

It works. Looks painterly.

I took the liberty of working on it a bit, I hope you don't mind. 🙂

I do not mind the sharpening in the photo. I spent most of the 1980s writing custom image processing software. It was fun. We spent a lot of time developing algorithms to sharpen images, and perform pattern recognition.

 

[James (DC)]

Al, that's an M4 I'm holding.

 

[Jamie Pillers]

Steve,
Thanks for opening up the conversation in this direction.

Personally, I like any image that evokes substantial feeling in me. I've seen a LOT of great photographs over the years and I'd say that many of those were either intended to be not sharp, or were accidentally not sharp but created a mood possibly not even initially intended by the photographer.

To me, capturing the "feeling" of the moment is far more important that sharpness. Many of the things I like to capture on film occur too quickly to stop to set up a tripod.

I also REALLY enjoy taking the Holga out for a walk from time to time precisely to break up my thinking about what a good image should look like. Its impossble to get a "sharp" image with one of these cheap plastic cameras, yet I have many images from this camera that are truly lovely to look at.

Oh... and did I say that I've also seen a ton of sharp images that evoke no feeling at all? 🙂

 

[jackal2513]

sharpness, the last bastion of the crap photographer

 

[Al Kaplan]

Sorry about that James. I asked the monkey, and she really thought that you were shooting with an M8 that day. Hey, if it wasn't for your bright idea a few years ago, my childhood toy monkey would still be sitting on his little chair, nobody would have given me some more toy monkeys, and I wouldn't be the only adult male in the tri-county area carrying a toy monkey around with me. Next time you're in Miami let's hold a seminar to teach toy monkeys (and perhaps a teddy bear or two) how to distiguish between the various Leica models.

 

[Silva Lining]

A interesting thread, I've never really though about 'sharpness' as a photographic aspiration, I have photos I love that are not tack-sharp, but thinking through I have taken more blurry photos (usually of my kids) that I wished were sharp than sharp photos I wish had a little more blur in them... 🙂

 

[d_ross]

I like the picture Steve, it makes me wonder where and how you live.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

most people (who haven't your practiced eye) don't understand the "artist's" intent and simply think them bad photos. While the photo intelligentsia may gaze longingly at a dark, fuzzy 20x30 print and declare his choice of a Noctilux just perfect, the artist will find 99.99 percent of viewers will simply declare it defective.

Here are a few defective photos:

If Oscar Wilde were a photographer, he'd probably say that sharpness is the last refuge of the shallow. He'd really love that one 😎

 

[RdEoSg]

I just show my first roll with a Holga last week. I have to admit it was pretty fun. I get so annoyed with all the people on flickr and elsewhere that think they have created art simply because they used a holga.. No it isn't an amazing shot, it's just fuzzy and has dark edges!!!!! That doesn't make it art!

I think the same applies here. I don't think there is a right or wrong for sharpness or blurryness it just depends on the shot. What works for one person won't for the next.

If' Steve feels that he's having more fun now and rediscovering his passion because he has broken away from the constraints of requiring every single shot to be absolutely still with no motion, then that is what works for him. If a Leica is what does it for him the great. Maybe it's a holga for the next guy.

Whatever works for ya I think!!!

 

[maddoc]

I think there is a very fine line. I've seen a lot of photographers who claimed to disdain sharpness as a way to cover up their laziness and lack of technical skill. I personally don't like unsharp photos, which is one of the reasons I don't like photos shot with the Noctilux.

Why does "photos shot with the Noctilux" imply "unsharp photos" ? Could it be that you misunderstood the difference between "motion blurr", "camera shake", "DOF", and "out-of-focus" rendering ?

 

[Tom A]

Here in Vancouver, at the moment, is a great exhibition "The Pictorialists". These are platinum/palladium/carbon etc prints from as far back as 1850 (Hill&Adamson). You look at the pictures and though they are soft, there is still a definition to them - not in them way we expect a 75 Summicron or a 50f1.4 Asph to render an image, but a much smoother vision.
Of course it is fun to shoot the sharpest possible image, top of the line lens/film etc - but does that improve the picture content? A sharp, bad picture is still bad and a great shot, even if it is a bit fuzzy is still great. There is also a difference between camera shake unsharpness - which I abhor and "selective" focussing sharpness, The latter can be used to emphasize something in the picture, rather than having over all f16 type of sharpness.
For many years I shot commercial stuff, industrial plants, aerial shots. Yes, they all had to be as sharp as it was possible to make them. If you are doing aerial images for large industrial installations, artfully "fuzzed" rocks ot trees does not appeal to the client!
Today the only one I have to satisfy is myself and I can afford to choose between being pinsharp with techpan and tripod and matched lenses, or use an M2, handheld at 1/8 with an early Summilux. No you cant count rivets on the bridge or read the DIN standard on the head of bolts on a 400ft long newsprint machine - but I think it is more interesting as a slightly flary, a bit soft but with a nice smooth grey scale image than the clinical 6000ws flashed 4x5 shot!
I have no urge to go "pictorialist", but I appreciate the skill and craftmanship these photographers brought to bear. OK, one reaon for not going that way is that you have to have a negative the size of the image and 24x36mm platinum prints would be of a limited appeal!

 

[Sonnar Brian]

Gabriel- Nice Pictures, but you are a LOT older than I thought... (Humor)

So who else here has ever used a gyro-stabilized Tyler camera mount? Damn, that thing was huge.


Tom, I think you've captured the sentiment of most RFF'rs reading this thread.