Funny, what made LF appeal to me most was the ability to defocus using movements and the smaller depth of field (than MF or 35mm).
Funny, what made LF appeal to me most was the ability to defocus using movements and the smaller depth of field (than MF or 35mm).
group 64 didn't advocate the literal interpretation of a scene, but creative interpretation through the use of photography without the need to use another form of expression as a "crutch" to make it seem more accepted as an art form. of course you have to consider the attitudes towards photography at the time.
as for the question, who is the we you are talking about? the need for sharpness also depends on the situation, I would hope that we are less predictable than that.
Hi Emil,
An interesting question and I think that we as photographers are more concerned about sharpness than our viewers are. I have seen people (non-photographers) commenting favourably on images which I notice are unsharp, but because the image has it's own impact, perhaps due to the subject or the composition or whatever, the viewers are not concerned that part of the image may be unsharp - they just like it for what it is.
If we try to reproduce "reality" type photographs then sharpness and detail certainly enhance these images as they relate closely to what we see, but if we are trying to create an "emotional" response to a photograph I think that sharpness is not so important, look how well abstract images can work and they are often not sharp edge to edge.
I believe it comes down to the subject matter - a portrait with unsharp eyes, whether human or animal, looks very odd, as would an architectural image if the building was not looking sharp and detailed. A landscape photograph on the other hand may look quite nice even if it is a bit soft.
I agree with Thilo; [snip]. . . ."we should be obsessed by it in the parts that need perfect sharpness to deliver the right (intended) message. This does not always apply to the whole photograph. In fact, unsharpness is as good as sharpness as a Rule of Composition. It always depends on the expression. . ."[snip]
Kind regards
Peter Brown
- Don't squat with your spurs on.
I do many images that use bokeh, but they are planned and I control where and how much for the effect I'm looking for. I confess what drew me into large format is the lenses (a good one's) ability to make images far sharper over much wider areas than my eye ever could. It fascinates me. Our eyes (when we were younger) can only focus sharply on a very narrow area. When we look at a large scene they "update" many times as we look around and keep adding different parts of the seen to our memory. We think we've taken in a large sharp panorama, but actually we've memorized many little scenes to make up the whole. My camera on the other hand can capture a huge area in resolution my eyes never dreamed of. That kind of sharpness can draw a viewer in even though they're unconscious of why. It is a tool that begs to be used on some images, not all.
Sharpness is in the eye of the photographer. People don't plunk down a few thousand for new LF gear and lenses to have unsharp images unless it is part of the design of the image. Look at most advertising work. The in thing is selective focus and depth of field. I would imagine most of this work is done with LF because you can calculate the exact placement of sharpness with in the image.
Most of my LF work is totally sharp because it is documentary in nature. I am recording a scene that needs to be sharp and do what needs to be done to eliminate exteraneous material from the image. Lf is simply the best tool for that particular aspect of my work.
The current trend in fine art photography is for unsharp images bordering on total blur, usually taken with 35mm, sometimes toy cameras, and pinhole cameras. I am not a sharpness freak, but some of the work I have seen looks the same as what my duaghter could do when she was 3. Check out www.photography-guide.com/index.html to see current Photo galleries in New York. Look for any name you are not familiar with and the work will be of the unsharp-blurry genre and not inexpensive to purchase.
I think we may confuse sharpness with completion and unification.In my experience sharpness is only a tool to be used or discarded as the situation demands and the soul of the photographer permits.Sharpness is really, way smaller in scale than perfection....the light of the sun is perfect....only when it interacts with dense physical matter does it appear to sharpen.To imagine that sharpness equals perfection, is like someone who, wearing the most expensive jewlery, will somehow... become a real person.
I like LF mainly because of its rich tonal range, not just because of sharpness. I found modern lenses sometimes even too sharp for portraits and I prefer the results from 40+ years old lenses. Sometimes even still life looks better with old lenses. Regards, www.janez-pelko.com
"Most of my LF work is totally sharp because it is documentary in nature". Interesting statement? Explain why a photograph that is documentary in nature needs to be totally sharp? The scene or situtation itslef isn't totally sharp to the human eye. In fact I would suggest that by making documentary photograph of something that is totally sharp in all it's aspects may in fact take away from the "documentary" nature of the image, and impose upon it something of the photographer own view of what the scene should look like.
You'd be amazed how small the demand is for pictures of trees... - Fred Astaire to Audrey Hepburn
www.photo-muse.blogspot.com blog
I think that I concur with Ellis' response.
People look at an image taken with a large format camera, and they say, "Wow, that's a great photograph!" I think that sharpness is an essential ingredient for an LF photograph to achieve that effect.
Tim, "documentary in nature" requires to capture as much information as possible. A sharp image contains more information than an unsharp one, whereas Information is simply an abstraction of Detail.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks