Most of us are avid Instagram scrollers. The thumbs really move fast and tens of images fly past the screen, and attention, in seconds. Some images though are the Thumb Stoppers!
Mostly, the Thumb Stoppers are the images that need some time to explore, to appreciate, to make sense of. The ability to retain attention, to keep offering new figures for exploration to the eye, is a defining quality of good images.
Blurs excel at that. The viewer has at least a few seconds worth of mystery to solve, interpretations to conjure, visions to make in their heads. And that makes a blur so much more likeable than a crystal sharp image that exposes itself completely at the moment of introduction.
And that is why blurs should have a claim to every tasteful collection of fine art photographs, or well appointed walls. The visitors to the drawing rooms will have pictures to draw themselves to…to appreciate for some time.
The technique is mostly straightforward unless you are attempting a shutter drag (only the keenest of photographers may bother) or a panning shot (which I do not consider a blur strictly speaking).
I will come to that in a while. Allow me first to show you a few blurs that I shot last year. For sometime I had had this bee in my bonnet about shooting flat angled blurs of cyclists and I found myself in the town of Münster, the cycling capital of Germany. What luck!
Many of these are available in open edition 8”x8, or 12”x12” prints should you want to see them on your walls. Let me know.
