A bit convoluted, but it is one of those nagging things that comes to me loud or softly on a semi regular basis. While looking at an older article I wrote a few months back I was taken by the things I said about an image “Lella, Bretagne 1947”, which I meant, but realise now, I seldom actually do.
An image is a sum of its parts. The central subject or subjects, the frame shape and scale, the out of focus elements, tones, colours, focus points and transitions. What worries me is the modern habit I have developed of tending to think in flatter forms, less aware of the whole of an image. Shifting to auto focus will tend to do this, because the relentless need to hit accurate focus means you tend to get tunnel vision.
When shooting landscapes or macro slowly and methodically on a tripod, it is natural for me to go manual focus and I realise now, my photographic mind set changes.
Street photography using zone focus also allows this partially, but shooting from the hip is more luck than perfect control.
My comment on this image was the quality of the subject behind the obvious one. Such a powerful main subject, an equally strong support.
The title above is as close to my thought processes as I could manage.
I am going to focus on the ongoing need to focus on being more wholistic, more imaginative and even a little old fashioned with my focus, my actual practical lens focus that is.
I am aware, sharply, almost painfully aware, that I have lost a whole way of seeing images. I have become linear in my image making, instead of layered.
I once chased that elusive depth n my inages, which only seems to come now when I shoot street images and that is in part down to very process of zone focus and being “in the flow”.
Truly great images come in many forms.
To me, one of the most powerful is the multi layered image, something many of the recent masters of documentary and street imaging were expert at, but in the auto focus age, the recent upsurge in “perfect” lens design that strips the character out of glass, maybe even lenses that allow ridiculously wide aperture photography with that all too soft rendering, we have lost the ability to see in multiple layers, to see smoothness and gentleness, transitions and a hierarchy of subject relevance.
Old tech forced a way of seeing and shooting, something we often cursed. If this was simply a lucky coincidence, an organic process long evolved, then the warning signs of AF and digital changes were all obvious, but also too quickly upon us and with them came all the benefits of speed and accuracy.
Speed and accuracy. Are these the enemies of empathy and connection.
I feel there may even be an argument for the “film look” partly being the different process used to capture the image in the limited frames, manual focus, less than perfect lens period. More depth came from good technique. More depth added…… more depth as it goes.
To see how we used to may mean partially winding back the technical clock.
Technology is always affecting photography, it is a technical discipline, but ways of seeing images are capable of transcending that.
It seems though, that maybe I am not anymore.
I used to see a frame using the “middle distance” style of martial arts, which is where you look at a point between you and your antagonist, feeling their movements as shapes in context to the whole space, not zeroing in on any specific move or object. To see the whole at once as a moving stage that you are part of.
I am very aware I am fixated now on focus point placement which in turn steals my attention away from the greater scene in front of me.
Like a nervous debutante actor, I am fixated on my blocking, but not the stage as a whole.
Manual focus and the right lens are part of the recovery programme, should I choose to take it.
The lens, something that needs some consideration needs to be a special combination of gentle primary rendering, with long transition out of focus rendering and strong micro contrast. The Olympus 17mm f1.8 has this, the 45mm maybe also. The old Pen F lens, the 25 f2.8 may also have these qualities. Other lenses that come to mind are the 12-40 f2.8 and maybe my cinema glass.
Wide open, the 45mm shows some promise, but wide open also misses the point. I often use this lens with multiple layers in mind, where the 30mm Sigma and 75mm Olympus tend to be main subject only lenses.
Many modern lenses do not do this. They are too sure of themselves by far, using optical perfection as an excuse to avoid character. I have always been aware that some lenses male you shoot certain ways.
I have lenses I rely on to give me startlingly sharp primary subjects only, others that make me think deeper and wider. The Canon 28 f1.8 did this, the 35 f2 (old model) also. The 17mm has the same effect, the 15mm Leica does not.
A link that may be useful is my video lens preferences. I feel that some lenses are better for video work with manual focus than others. Maybe this is also a hint that they are better suited to forgiving manual focus “by feel”, than more modern in-out lenses.
Same people reversed, so on this day, I obviously felt this was a thing and I have noticed often, that some lenses make me think this way, others do not.
Rejecting backgrounds seems to have become a sign of professionalism in photography. Layering depth in an image, seems to be off-trend.
This image was taken with the 15mm Pana-Leica, a lens that screens "sharp cut-out, soft background". A modern trend, maybe in response to pin-point accuracy and AF, hero-ing the subject, rejecting the background. I know from experience, that my Oly 17mm would not only render this differently, but it would also make me think differently while composing the image.
The 17mm allows me to see with depth. The two lens are similar in a lot of ways, but background rendering is not one of them. The 17mm often gets low mass for Bokeh, but I feel that it is miss-understood. Its rendering is not up to modern in-out super soft Bokeh standards, being better suited to "old fashioned" long draw, background inclusive rendering.
Even at wider apertures, it is capable of telling a story. I have tried to prove this out and failed, but in use it is there. I feel confident in shooting quickly and letting the lens sort it out, the 15mm above is much more about getting it right, the alternative being an obvious wrong. Neither is the right or only away, both have their uses.
This is a trend and as such it will evolve over time. Some of us though wish to be trend immune and let an image get what it needs.
So, tools for the job.
The Pen F and 17mm are probably ground zero, using manual focus, considered and immersive composing using depth and form over focus prioritising perfection.
Longer lenses are tough, being more subject orientated by definition, but the 45, maybe the 25 “F” series lens from the old Pen half frames, the 25 Oly maybe and I think some zooms may need consideration.
The main thing is though, maybe for the next rip to Japan, I am focussing on focussing on focus as a priority, but not in the obsessive way I have been.