Does a misfocused image ever "work"?

[Excalibur]

[hoanpham]

Normally I trash all my mis-focus photos - if the mis-focus is not intended.
But I did as David said: Keep the photo as a half-finish-working concept, and re-shoot if possible.

nice photo btw.

[Attila]

[ilguercio]

You know, sometimes when you're on a shooting you might delete a few shots while you're resting or just reviewing the pictures on the lcd.
I'm glad i didn't delete this example i'm posting, otherwise i would have missed a very nice shot (in my opinion) even though the focus point barely catches her hair.


About the picture that started the thread.
It works for me, her eyes catch my attention nevertheless and while it is technically wrong or just an error, i think i'd keep it too.
I think one must look at the picture in its entireness, sometimes we do too much of pixelpeeping and discard everything that looks wrong.

[my_photography]

My first reaction when seeing the lady and the tree in the other thread, I didn't like it because the lady was out of focus. Now in this thread, I see that quite a number of people like the photos so I look at it few more times.

I guess as long as one sees a story behind the "out of focus" photo, it will work. I took a photo yesterday and purposely had it out of focus all the way. I even put some text there. I did all that before reading this thread.


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[erkie]

[Pontus]

For me it's simple. I took one look at the picture and went - ooh, that's nice. It can be that simple. You either like a picture or you don't.
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[mo]

For me the "woman in focus" factor does not enter my mind,but there is an emotion captured that comes out from the image.I like the rough tree bark in contrast to the softness of light falling on Stasia.I have to add I like that you can see the detail in the eye. I want to know what she is thinking...comfort or something else.
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[Orio]

[Nesster]

I'm thinking this pic could be better - but not necessarily for exactly the reasons that have already been mentioned.

I've seen some early photography that breaks the 'rules' very effectively. E.g. there was a beautiful portrait by Julia Margaret Cameron, made with a very large view camera in the studio, where she had carefully placed the focus... on the woman's chin!

Also, your photo reminds me of some of Stieglitz's work with O'Keeffe's hands...

What I'm trying to say is that if you made a virtue of the 'mis-focus' and made the 'subject' be the hand on the bark, this pic would have worked better... I'd probably put less light on the skin...
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[Orio]

Sometimes when we click we intend to take an image, but our camera takes a different one.... sometimes surprising... how many times this has happened to me? Countless.
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[themoleman342]

Wow, I am blown away by this reception. Both for and against arguments are really amazing. Everyone has given me a lot to think about. There's almost too many points to individually respond to. I'd be here all day. Rest assured, I will have a lot in mind for my next outing with Stasia.

I am flattered that so many actually like the photo and see something more in it. But because my intention was different when I took the photo, it takes away from it for me. So much of art is about intention. The Suprematism art movement on the surface was just painted geometric shapes but Malevich transformed that into a statement on human perspective and emotion.
Like Orio said, I could "sell" the photo as deliberate. But I know that's not true. Maybe it doesn't matter...

[Orio]

[Nesster]

[kuuan]