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But that's not -
really sharp...

I'm sure every photographer has heard this sentence before. Now and again this may even be the case by mistake. But have you ever thought about deliberately taking "blurred" pictures? In this article, we want to give you the inspiration to try something unusual, namely creating blur on purpose. So, get your camera out and let's go!

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But that's not really sharp... That's right. It isn't. The photo shows a man snatching a sabre from the King of Belgium in L?opoldville (now Kinshasa, Republic of Congo). It is also appropriately called "The Sabre Heist", was taken by Robert Lebeck in 1960 and is a contemporary document. Google it, I'm sure you'll find it. This picture is about the moment, about the emotions and not about technical perfection.
It doesn't matter whether the picture lacks sharpness or not. When this photo was taken, there were only cameras with manual focus. Photojournalists like Robert Lebeck had the foresight to preset their cameras. They rarely shot with an open aperture in order to extend the depth of field a little further. After all, you never knew what would happen during such events, you mingled with the crowd and kept your eyes open. If something happened, you could only focus "roughly" and had to pull the trigger. Whatever happened, it had to happen within this focus range. The photographer's "nose" was often right, but sometimes not. That was annoying, because there was almost never a second opportunity. There are other examples of photos where superficial demands for technical perfection roll off like water on a hood after hot wax treatment. The "Leap into Freedom" by Peter Leibing is famous. It shows the People's Policeman Conrad Schumann on August 15, 1961, at the moment when he jumps over unrolled barbed wire from East to West Berlin: Into the freedom of the West. The border was still full of holes and the Wall was not yet finished everywhere. Willy Brandt's prostration in Warsaw in 1970 is also well known. Some photographers were able to capture this moment. Some of these pictures do not correspond to our modern ideas of technical perfection. They are slightly out of focus, slightly grainy due to the film material used and the development process. This is not a problem.

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in 1972, the Vietnam War is raging, unimaginable violence and confusion mark an entire country.
Photographer Nick Ut (actually Huynh Cong ?t) succeeds in taking the photo that everyone knows: the naked girl Kim Ph?c, marked by burns, running down a street together with other children after a napalm attack. The surroundings in the picture: soldiers, grainy, slightly out of focus. The runners: Slightly out of focus. The photo: An icon that relentlessly shows the madness of war. We all know these pictures, we all remember them when we hear the title or a keyword. They rightly bear the stamp "icon". We remember what they mean, not how they were executed. Whether they are sharp or not is unimportant. Message and content are the only criteria that count here. Or do you know someone who, when asked about the Vietnam photo, says: "Yes, that's the photo that's not quite sharp...." Hardly. So is "out of focus" generally not a bad thing? Is sharpness generally overrated? Is it okay to take sloppy photos now? It's not quite that simple, good craftsmanship is always a prerequisite for quality, but there are different standards for quality in photography. We're used to seeing clearly, it's important for us in everyday life.
Ifthat doesn't quite workout, the only option is to go to the optician. The grin you get when you put your new glasses on your nose and feel that something is "right again" is a clear sign of how much clear, sharp vision means to us. As we initially expect photography to depict reality as accurately as possible, we also expect it to produce sharp, clear images.

In terms of design, this is often referred to as "selective focus", which can be briefly described as "sharp = important". The message of a photo can be influenced by selectively placing or setting the focus level. And if that doesn't work? Well, we all get annoyed when the camera's autofocus doesn't "grab" properly, when the autofocus module on SLR cameras is misaligned and nothing is in focus, or when the lens is "crooked" and no longer delivers sharp images. We don't even want to talk about blurred images.

"Whether they are sharp or not is unimportant. Message and content are the only criteria that count here."

Occasionally, objects or people are also out of focus if they have exceeded the so-called close-up limit and are too close for the autofocus to focus on them. These objects are then out of focus, while the background is usually sharp. However, there seems to be a difference between what kind of blurring is involved. Slight blurring due to technical reasons or photographer error seems to bother most people, it's unintentional.
It always looks like "that's not how it's supposed to be", like an oversight, even if the photography forums on the net are full of people who always want to tell you that it's intentional.
Whoever believes it...
But if you increase the degree of blurring to such an extent that it can't possibly be explained by a defect in the equipment or the inability of the person behind the camera, blurring takes on a meaning. It can become a serious design element that can be used successfully if you think about the subject beforehand.

Not every subject can be successfully depicted out of focus. After all, blurring primarily means a loss of detail: subtleties can no longer be depicted, details are no longer separated from their surroundings but become one with them. The highly crafted movement of a pocket watch would therefore be less suitable as a motif, as the blurring would obscure what it is all about. What is more important is the external form of the objects depicted. Blurring is therefore always a tool for reduction, it can weaken or even completely eliminate distracting image content.
The means of blurring shows its strengths where motifs retain their essence even without many details, where statements are not weakened by blurring, but perhaps even emerge in the first place. Large objects are generally well suited. Stand-alone houses, for example, or city landmarks. The Eiffel Tower can be as blurred as you like, you will always recognize it because you know what it looks like. The blurred image triggers memories in you, appeals to your wealth of experience and the image works. A blurred image is more work for the viewer and involves them more in the viewing process than an image in which "everything is clear". Blurred images can appear threatening because the subject does not reveal itself. In street photography, blurring solves a major problem for us, which we have in this country at least: The problem with personal rights and the feeling of individuals suddenly being insanely important. Despite selfies, Instagram and Facebook, people are sensitive when it comes to their own likeness. However, if people are turned into blurred silhouettes, they become anonymous ambassadors of a situation that can be quite interesting. So what does "out of focus" mean for the settings on the camera?
First of all,it means that we have to switch off the autofocus. In other words, the switch on the lens or on the camera from "AF" to "MF", or in the case of a compact camera somewhere in the menu.

We now focus manually so that nothing, absolutely nothing in the picture is in focus. We do not focus manually into the infinity range, i.e. "far back". This would mean that objects that are "infinitely" far away for the corresponding combination of lens and camera would still be in focus. In reality, this can be the case from 10 or 15m, because for a 17mm wide-angle lens, 15m is already "infinitely" far away. So if we still have "something" in the picture at a distance of 15m (which is very likely in a city, because there is always something standing/lying/driving/running around), our plan of blurring the entire picture would not work: What is far away would be in focus.

"So blurring is always a tool for reduction..."

But we don't want that, so we have to focus in the other direction:
We set the distance to very short distances, 0.4 - 0.5m for example, depending on what the lens allows. If we have nothing in the foreground that is that close to our camera, nothing in the image will be in focus. How much out of focus the images can become depends on your camera system and the lenses used. With digital full-frame cameras or analog 35 mm cameras, the blurring will be more pronounced than with cameras with a significantly smaller image sensor, such as the Microfourthirds system. But the lens also has a say.
A wide-angle lens will tend to produce a less blurred image than a light or medium telephoto lens. The aperture setting also plays a role, of course. If you work with an open aperture (i.e. small f-numbers) on a fast lens, you will quickly end up with a blurred image. With an aperture of 14, things will look different.

"If nothing is recognizable at all, we have overshot the mark."

The distance to the subject also plays a major role. Objects that are far away are less likely to be blurred than objects that are close. The basics that play a role when photographing with "normal focus" are the same as those for "out-of-focus photography".
If you set out to take out-of-focus pictures, you will find that there can quickly be "too much" blur. If nothing at all is recognizable, we have overshot the mark. The camera monitor can also become a trap here. It shows us what the captured image looks like, but it is very small. Small images appear sharper to us than larger ones.
We are therefore well advised not to trust the monitor and rather take several pictures with different levels of blurriness so that we can be sure of achieving the right degree of "fuzziness", as it is called in English. Of course, you can change the photo further in post-processing. Play around with the saturation, contrasts and gradation curves. You'll soon see that blurring doesn't have to be a mistake if you know how to use it...
So, now it's almost 10 pm and I'm keen for a beer...


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