The concept of taking blurry pictures is hard to grasp and can frustrate many people. This concept is frustrating too many because our minds are trained to view blurry pictures as mistakes while crisp and clear pictures as perfection. Taking blurry pictures is especially hard for perfectionists because they want everything to be perfect and blurry pictures are the complete opposite.
Elsie Larson and Emma Chapman, photographers and bloggers, are two of the few people in this world who find beauty in blurry pictures instead of frustration. In their book, A Beautiful Mess: Photo Idea Book, they describe the beauty they find in blurry pictures, how blurriness can make a picture better, and how to take good blurry pictures.
When taking blurry pictures on purpose you can either set your camera on manual to select how far you want to blur or where you want to blur and if your camera doesn't have a manual setting you can shake your camera a little while taking the picture or later you can blur the image with a photo editing app. While taking blurring pictures keep in mind not to photograph faces because it may turn out unflattering (Chapman and Larson 86). The two photos below and the one above are ones I took trying out the concept:
Before taking these pictures I expected the concept and technique to be frustrating to try because I'm kind of a perfectionist myself and blurry pictures are completely against what I like; as I was taking these pictures it was a lot easier than I expected and I actually liked how they turned out. I think the reason why I like blurry pictures now is the same reason why Elsie and Emma love them so much because like they said, "When you choose to take a blurry photo, you are trying to capture a feeling more than a specific feature or image" (86). After reading that sentence in the book I said to myself that I'm go to take more pictures that conveys a feeling and I realized that not everything has to be perfect to hold beauty.
My question for you guys is are you a perfectionist?
Citations:
Chapman, Emma, and
Elsie Larson. A Beautiful Mess: Photo Idea Book. New York: Amphoto,
2013.
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Blurry pictures for the win! Even now, after finishing my blog post for blurry pictures, I still take blurry pictures and I love what you did with the blurry pictures concept here! :) To answer your question, I am, without a doubt, a perfectionist, to the point where it's kind of worrisome almost. Especially since I'd never get anything done quickly if I tried to make everything perfect. It's a double-edged sword, if that's the right term for it. Being the perfectionist I am, this blurry concept was tough for me, it was difficult to not just delete it and try for clearer images. But "A Beautiful Mess" convinced me a little, even before I started taking blurry pictures, that I shouldn't just look at what it looks and instead dig deep for that hidden meaning :) there's a flaw to my perfectionist-ism!
ReplyDeleteYes! I agree with the part where you said that you never get things done quickly because you want things to be perfect. I do that for everything: I want things to be so perfect that it takes me a long time to finish like powerpoint projects. Thank you but I just took pictures with my camera set to manual with nothing different. The book, "A Beautiful Mess", made me realize many things and notice things about the world and in life - it's such a great book!!
DeleteI love the one of the christmas tree! I tried to that that same picture but could not do it like you did, my camera would not let the picture be blurry, it was weird. I'm not sure how you make it possbile to be blurry by changing the camera settings like you talked about?
ReplyDeleteDoes your camera have a manual setting? Some cameras don't and on mine it does have a manual setting. The manual setting on my camera allows me to adjust the shutter speed, aperture opening, and the distance of focus. If your camera doesn't have a manual setting you can always blur the picture with editing app. Another alternative I found is using the camera on "Snapchat" it sometimes lets you take blurry pictures because it can't focus on the all the light. I hope this response helps. :)
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