all photos ~ (embiggenable)
STILL MESSING AROUND WITH THE NARROW DEPTH OF FIELD / selective focus thing, both in my head and with my actual picture making.
The in-my-head thing is the question, “what is my picture making intent?” Or, in other words, the why of it; is it just a picture making technique exercise or is there some kind of implied statement, re: the medium and its apparatus, aka: what is a photograph?
The actual-picture-making thing is a question about, not why, but rather about how? In other words, use a “real camera” or the iPhone PORTRAIT mode? I am (currently) leaning toward the “real” camera approach for the simple reason that, with a “real” camera, I can focus manually and that locks in my selected focus plane. Whereas, with the iPhone, the auto focus tends to want to search for a focus plane even after I select an area on the screen.
All of that written, I do like the pictures I have been making while walking around my neighborhood.–fyi, all made with a “real” camera–I especially those pictures like the 2 in this entry with lots of stuff going on, most of which is rendered out of focus. If I were to give this emerging body of work title, it would probably be the Circle of Confusion; a play on the photographic term used in determining depth of field which also plays well with Saul Leiter’s idea ….
“I like it when one is not certain of what one sees. When we do not know why a photographer has taken a picture, and when we do not know why we are looking at it, we discover something that we start seeing. I like that confusion.”
Confusion has always been a definitive part of my photo making especially so from the viewer’s point of view; I can not count the number of times I have heard, confusion-wise, “Why did you take a picture of that?” very often followed by, “I don’t know why I like it, but I do.” Just like Saul Leiter, I do like that confusion and I do believe that my shallow DOF pictures will create some confusion along the lines of what exactly is this a picture of together with why is everything out of focus?
In any event, confusion-wise, it would seem that my picture making, DOF aside, M.O. is the same as it ever was.