Another in my series of experiments with completely out of focus landscapes. I have been having fun shooting these photos every now and then and have been working on this side project for several month, for a few reasons:

1) I like to reject the notion that every photograph has to be in focus from front to back all the time. In fact I like to reject about every notion that says photography has to be anything other than what the photographer chooses it to be.

2) I find the idea of a slightly out of focus world interesting. Many of us have less than perfect eyesight, myself included. In reality, without my glasses, the scene would have looked much more like this than a perfectly in focus one. So which is actually the truer representation of my vision of this place? Good question...

3) Shooting out of focus makes me compose and photograph differently. I pay more attention to form and color. Shapes play a more important role than details. Sometimes we get so hung up in the details and overlook the relationships of objects.

Sidenote: That last point reminds me of some of my history classes in college. I took a number of classes on WWII, always a popular class. There are quite a few people who think a class on war ought to be great entertainment. Those classes often attracted a certain type of individual. One who has watched countless documentaries on tv and can recite all the facts you would ever want to know. But they don't get the connections. They will tell you the diameter of the gun barrels on the USS Missouri or the casualty counts of the battle of the Bulge, but struggle when it comes to question that ask one to explain the impacts or significance of a particular decision or treaty, or what the long term effects were, or how one action taken by a country on one side of the world could have severe effects on those taken by countries the other side of the globe. In short, they drowned in the details, but had no grasp of the larger picture. This type of photography is an attempt to understand those relationships a bit better by eliminating details where they might ultimately just be a distraction.

Not that I really put that much thought into some of these pictures, which leads me to...

4) These photos are often the result of, and seem to convey more of, the emotion felt watching this particular moment. I cannot explain it much better than to say, looking through my lens at this one moment, it just felt more right to take it out of focus.

Sunset in Joshua Tree National Park, taken with my Pentax 6x7.

Tags:   landscape sunset California Joshua Tree National Park Joshua Trees silhouette tree desert Pentax 6x7 out of focus blurry simple meditative relaxing Go on, take your glasses off Zeb Andrews Zeb Andrews photography Blue Moon Camera

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For those who thought my previous post of this sunset strayed a little too close to the mainstream ;-) here is a slightly different take on it. I want to start shooting more of these myopic landscapes, so this image does not represent a finished product as much as it is an idea of an ongoing series for me. Something to challenge the way I look at a scene. Shooting out of focus definitely causes you to look at elements a bit differently, so I figure if anything it ought to be a good exercise.

The idea for this series by the way was inspired by this series of OoF images.

Tags:   sunset Oregon Pacific Ocean Pacific Northwest Cape Meares out of focus OoF Pentax 6x7 Fuji Reala 120 film landscape seascape impression ocean coast clouds purple Zeb Andrews Zeb Andrews photography Blue Moon Camera

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Life has kept me pretty busy these past few months, so ironically, among the many things I have been working, even though I just hung a whole show on the St Johns Bridge, I have not actually been out in quite a while to take photos of it. Coupled with the fact that I have lately been seeing a lot good photography of this bridge on Flickr, really made me itchy to get out and revisit one of my favorite places in Portland to take pictures.

I remedied all that about a week ago by getting out at sunset to Cathedral Park, under the bridge, where I have taken most of photos of this bridge. Sunset never amounted to anything but I figured the sky would slowly fade into this deep well of blue that it sometimes does and we decided to head across the bridge instead to the far side and the vantages over there. I had this particular angle in mind at the time but it was not until I hiked up the trail and set up on the little footbridge at the vista that the idea to take a shot completely out of focus occurred to me. Actually I took three shots in this series, one in focus, this one out of focus, and another where I racked the focus in and out during the exposure. I really like all three, and thought about posting them as a triptych, but ultimately I liked this one the best. It removes the sharp details, and gives more emphasis to my favorite aspects of the evening, the deep blue color of the sky versus the yellow and red of passing traffic, and the graceful form of the bridge itself.

I hope to get up here again soon, I want to try and find a vantage point that affords me a good view straight down the bridge. I know there used to be a decent one but there were still a few trees that obstructed that view and they have grown up even more in the intervening years since my last visit there. It was too dark this evening to do any further exploring, but perhaps tonight... :-)

Taken with my Pentax 6x7 and cross processed Kodak EPP.

Tags:   St Johns Bridge Portland Oregon dusk blue bridges PDX Out of focus myopic blurry traffic lights night city urban suspension bridges historical bridges Pentax 6x7 cross processed Kodak EPP 6x7 city lights long exposure Zeb Andrews Zeb Andrews photography Blue Moon Camera

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Control, apparently, is not the answer. People who need certainty in their lives are less likely to make art that is risky, subversive, complicated, iffy, suggestive or spontaneous. What's really needed is nothing more than a broad sense of what you are looking for, some strategy for how to find it, and an overriding willingness to embrace mistakes and surprises along the way. Simply put, making art is chancy - it doesn't mix well with predictability. Uncertainty is the essential, inevitable and all-prevasive companion to your desire to make art. And tolerance for uncertainty is the prerequisite to succeeding.

Another excerpt from Art & Fear. I found it meaningful, hopefully some others out here shall too.

This was an image I made in Vermont, near a small church we had stopped to photographed. The ground was layered in fallen leaves and I was laying in them staring straight up, admiring the blue sky and yellow leaves, the warmth of the sun, and the lazily drifting clouds. This was how it all felt to me.

Tags:   out of focus oof Vermont blue yellow leaves sky skyscape Fall Autumn New England branches trees Nikon FM2 Fuji Velvia 50 slide blurry impression Zeb Andrews Zeb Andrews photography Blue Moon Camera

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Another of my explorations of the world viewed through something other than infinity. This happens to be the Fremont Bridge one evening spent wandering the Portland waterfront.

The out of focus lights are circular because my aperture was wide open. The more you close the aperture of your lens down the more bright points of out of focus light will take on the shape of your aperture, as defined by the aperture blades themselves.

Tags:   oof Out of focus Portland PDX Fremont Bridge bridges night urban Pentax 6x7 Kodak 400UC lights camera action Willamette River myopia dream Zeb Andrews Zeb Andrews photography Blue Moon Camera

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