Go For the Blur

  Photographers can get obsessed with sharpness and with good reason.  Eyes, in my experience, seem to want to concentrate on what takes the least amount of work. Staring at something that's blurry is tiring.  So eyes will search for a focal point (like autofocus in a camera), moving around the visual field, pulling in and out until they can achieve that place where seeing is effortless and the subject is clear.  No matter the depth of field (the distance between the closest and furthest objects that remain in focus), having the thing you want viewers to gravitate to completely in focus makes sense. Also, sharp photos just look nice.

It's definitely easier to get a subject in focus if that subject holds still.  Here's a picture of Bailey (note the shallow depth-of-field--cat eyes and nose sharp while flowers and cat body not so much).  He is not holding still for me; I believe he is focusing elsewhere, like on a vole or a bug.  So he is holding still so as not to scare off his potential prey.  No matter; he stopped moving long enough for me to take a sharp photo.

However, I mostly shoot pictures of plants, and shouting "stop moving" doesn't really work all that well (it doesn't work on cats either). So a crucial problem anyone who likes to shoot plants has is that they have a tendency to respond quite quickly to their immediate environment.  And as much as I enjoy breathing, air makes my job a lot harder. It just takes a whiff for my subject to shimmy. And all the tripods and remote shutter releases in the world won't help. If I can't use a fast shutter speed, I've got to sacrifice the depth of field I want, and if I up the ISO I'll have to deal with noise (sorry for the tech-speak--just trust me; it's a thing). This means I spend a lot of time waiting for the breezes to subside, which is pleasant, I admit. But it can get frustrating too.

Bellingham has been having a very unusual heat wave. And here in my little microclimate from hell, it's been oven-hot. NOT what I moved north from Los Angeles for. So standing outside in a breeze this morning was heaven . . . and then, not so much because I was trying to photograph flowers on stalks. No polite flutters and then the calm. These suckers just wave around like they're hailing a cab in a crowd after an Everly Brothers Reunion concert. After a lot of waiting, fidgeting, resetting settings, and more waiting, I decided toss my plans to the winds, use a slow shutter speed, and see what the blurs would look like.

Here's a Veronica spicata 'Ulster Blue Dwarf', also known as Speedwell.  No wind.  Sharp(ish) focus on the closest stalk.

Now, here comes the wind.  Yes, the focused one was taken earlier in the season, but let's not quibble. 

  This is what is known as "blur."  If you move your eyes back and forth, from the sharp one to the blurry one and back really quickly, the blurry one will start to look more like painting.  Or like a blurry photo.
OK.  Let's try again.  Below is a photo of another Veronica spicata but now a 'Giles van Hees'.

 And here comes the wind:

At this point I'm going to provide some information to distract you.  I did not know that Veronica wasn't the  common name, but the genus.  Although no one seems willing to go on record as being certain, most of the sources I consulted agreed that the name was probably associated with the Veronica who it was said gave Jesus her veil to wipe his forehead on his way to Calvary.  When he returned it, the cloth supposedly bore his likeness: vera icon = true image.  As for naming the plant after her or the cloth, that becomes a little less clear (yes, pun/reference intended here to show that this IS all connected to my topic).  Some sources say that the likeness on the veil resembled the flowers of the plant.  Sharp or blurry, I just don't quite see it.  Now the common name--Speedwell--makes a bit more sense.  As an medicinal herb, it is purported to have several healing qualities--much like an Christian icon might have for some believers.

So what I have taken away from my little experiment:  While some blurs can work artistically or can be used to convey a sense of motion, I think I'd rather wait out most breezes and attempt to catch the moment when my Speedwell holds still.