A Blurry World

The concept of taking blurry pictures is hard to grasp and can frustrate many people. This concept is frustrating too many because our minds are trained to view blurry pictures as mistakes while crisp and clear pictures as perfection. Taking blurry pictures is especially hard for perfectionists because they want everything to be perfect and blurry pictures are the complete opposite.

Elsie Larson and Emma Chapman, photographers and bloggers, are two of the few people in this world who find beauty in blurry pictures instead of frustration. In their book, A Beautiful Mess: Photo Idea Book, they describe the beauty they find in blurry pictures, how blurriness can make a picture better, and how to take good blurry pictures.

When taking blurry pictures on purpose you can either set your camera on manual to select how far you want to blur or where you want to blur and if your camera doesnt have a manual setting you can shake your camera a little while taking the picture or later you can blur the image with a photo editing app. While taking blurring pictures keep in mind not to photograph faces because it may turn out unflattering (Chapman and Larson 86). The two photos below and the one above are ones I took trying out the concept:

 

 

Before taking these pictures I expected the concept and technique to be frustrating to try because Im kind of a perfectionist myself and blurry pictures are completely against what I like; as I was taking these pictures it was a lot easier than I expected and I actually liked how they turned out. I think the reason why I like blurry pictures now is the same reason why Elsie and Emma love them so much because like they said,  "When you choose to take a blurry photo, you are trying to capture a feeling more than a specific feature or image" (86). After reading that sentence in the book I said to myself that Im go to take more pictures that conveys a feeling and I realized that not everything has to be perfect to hold beauty.

 

My question for you guys is are you a perfectionist?

 

Citations:

Chapman, Emma, and Elsie Larson. A Beautiful Mess: Photo Idea Book. New York: Amphoto, 2013.

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