Tip: deliberately focus incorrectly for once

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

It is tempting to share only your successes as a photographer. You keep your mistakes to yourself. But what if a mistake accidentally leads to a better photo? You rarely hear about that either. So here is an example of such a mistake, and how it accidentally led to something unexpected.

During my visit to the photography festival in Arles, I was hanging around at an exhibition I didn’t really understand. My gaze wandered towards an open window and the street scene below.

The window looked out onto a zebra crossing. Different people were constantly waiting there.

I photographed the people who caught my interest. Visually interesting, that is. Their hair colour, posture, the colour of their clothes, you name it.

I focused on the people each time. Logical, of course, as they were what I was photographing. The foliage seemed like a nice frame for the image, and its blur also created a sense of depth.

And then a woman in a red dress came along. I had just stopped photographing, so I quickly put my eye back to the viewfinder. She was already crossing the road. Click, one photo.

But my camera focused on the leaves, not the woman. On top of that, the woman’s head had already disappeared beneath the leaves.

Oops.

I was gutted, and the woman had long since walked on. I took a few more shots and left. What a shame, I had missed the moment.

But when I got home, I found the blurred photo the strongest one. The suggestion, the mystery, the woman walking out of the frame. The atmosphere fitted what I wanted to say much better.

Open and closed photographs

You might also like

6 comments

Have your say