Losing Focus or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Blur

Last month I participated in Nectar and Light's monthly Photo Trade. The theme was Losing Focus: Find beauty in the blur. The idea was to share photographs in which the main subject was out of focus.

I have tried intentionally blurring the main subject of my photos before, here and there. But, more often than not, I've had camera shake, subway vibrations, crowd jostle, and miscalculated shutter speed to thank for my lack of focus, though on occasion those misfortunes lead to an interesting shot.

Last month, however, I systematically set out to get the most out of my blur. It was actually very liberating not to have to worry about focus at all.


Sometimes, in blurring the intended subject of my shot, I ended up with new focus altogether.


I even experimented with the (extremely scientific) technique of swinging my camera around madly in the 8th Street subway stop to see what sort of effect the camera's movement would have this on mural of a woman in the rain.


All in all, it was a very satisfying month of experimenting with blur. And to top it all off, I received this lovely photo in the mail the other day.

June's Photo Trade theme is Into the Light: Learn to love flare. I haven't come up with anything yet, but I'm working on it.