What is my focus? Purity vs. artistry
Anne Houde, September 2019, Lotus 2
Photographers hold strong beliefs and have strong disagreements about what makes a good photograph. I won't go so far as to say there are just two kinds, but it's interesting to draw a contrast. There are the straight shooters who seek to capture an objective reality, as it exists, in their photographs. And then there are the impressionist types who play more fast and loose, creating images that convey their personal interpretation of what they see rather than an exact rendition of reality. Straight shooters may belong to camera clubs that hold competitions, judging photos with point systems that reward tack-sharp focus, correct exposure, strong composition, and adherence to various rules; they hold Ansel Adams and his F64 group in high esteem. Their best straight photographs are often stunning, capturing the true beauty of the real world, but then, everyone wants to capture the same photo. Photographers with a more impressionist mindset are all about blur, abstraction, and breaking rules with intention, seeking to convey a feeling, a relationship, an idea, an impression. These are not just upstart mavericks--many of the earliest photographers of the of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, called pictorialists, emulated the creative approaches of contemporary painters. Much has been written about how straight photography supplanted pictorial photography as F64 created a movement seeking perfection in photographs.
Edward Steichen's early work (before 1920) was in the pictorialist tradition, but later he became a straight shooter.
Edward Steichen, 1904, The Pond--Moonlight
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3203168
Edward Steichen, 1925, Sunday Night, 40th Street, New York
https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/objects/sunday-night-40th-street-new-york
As I began my journey in photography, I discovered that I am by nature a rule-breaker, a maverick, an experimentalist, not a straight shooter. In fact I have a few photos from 40+ years ago in which I tried out abstraction (brick wall, cracks in mud) and selective focus (my sister's nose and my dog's nose). My first purchase of camera equipment was a 100mm macro lens that taught me how to discover new realities in slivers of focus on the insides of flowers. So yes, selective focus (ok, call it what it is, artistic use of blur), became my favorite tool in trade, allowing me to break many, many rules. And indeed, the dichotomy among photographers comes down, in large part, to the straight shooters' holy grail of maximum sharpness versus the impressionists' preference to combine in-focus and out-of-focus elements. Even though I reject the idea that straight shooting is the only way to make a good photograph, I do appreciate a well-crafted shot of a beautiful subject, and I recognize how difficult it is to make one!
A few days ago, I noticed that waterlilies were in peak bloom in our area. These flowers amaze me with their stunning perfection and vibrant colors, so I sometimes try a shot or two when I spot a nice one. My random shots of waterlilies are usually garbage for several reasons: sunlight is not a good condition to photograph them, I don't have a long enough lens with me to get close enough, the exact angle of the flower is critical to good composition. So, random shots won't do.
The forecast for last Sunday was for cool, cloudy weather. I grabbed my trusty 100mm macro and my little garden bench to sit on, and planned on enough time to really work on those lilies, which were in great profusion and many varieties. I even had time to come back the next day. As a bonus, there were some lotus flowers in all stages of bud, bloom, and pod.
Purple Waterlily, Anne Houde, September 2019
Waterlilies are large flowers, roughly the size and shape of half a tennis ball to half a softball. Their perfect beauty has to do with the pattern and symmetry of their pointy petals and how the colors spread concentrically from the center. So guess what, sharp focus brings all of this out best, and I needed to work on achieving a large depth of field. The lens did not need to be a macro, but I did need the reach of 100mm. Fortunately the day brightened so I could use F10 to get whole flowers in focus without compromising on ISO.
Two Pink Waterlilies, Anne Houde, September 2019
I got in the zone and worked my way through white, yellow, pink, magenta, and purple waterlilies. I did single portraits, scenes with two or more flowers, and worked on compositions with flowers and lily pads. Straight shooting can be fun!
Inexplicably though, at one point, my camera had to make this image, so I went along and enhanced it in Lightroom. I think it was channeling Georgia O'Keeffe.
Purple Waterlily 2, Anne Houde, September 2019
When I came to the lotuses it was clear that I could play fast and loose and try and find the essence of these soulful flowers in ways that didn't seem to work with the waterlilies, so I returned to blur in the end.
Lotus 1, Anne Houde, September 2019
Lotus 2, Anne Houde, September 2019
Here is a lotus by Steichen. Straight or impressionist?
Edward Steichen, 1915, Lotus, Mount Kisco, New York
https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/objects/lotus-mount-kisco-new-york
Are you by nature a straight shooter? Or do you like to interpret the world according to your own rules? Pick a subject and try both approaches. How do you feel as you work to achieve sharp focus and perfect exposure? What if you experiment with different ways of making images, breaking some rules? Which is you, or can you do both? Does your answer depend on the subject?