Baker's Dozen: The 'Blur' Portfolio

By Alan Sailer

By Rick Schermerhorn

By John Gillooly

By Joel Kirsh

By Francis Sullivan

By Carlos Quijana

By Kristine Hinrichs

By Andrew Maclean

By Collin J. Örthner

By Jed Soane

By Ralph Saulnier

By Jürgen Holfort

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Alan Sailer from Camarillo, California, USA: "My wife and I were doing a camping trip along the coast, along Big Sur, and we found out about a fashion show at the Henry Miller Library. It was a very relaxed event and a lot of fun. I was using a longer lens and had no experience shooting moving subjects. The blur was unintentional (I am way too focused (!) on sharpness, to a fault)."

Rick Schermerhorn from the San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA: "Intentional camera movement of Honda passenger dashboard while waiting at the hospital."

John Gillooly from Milton Village, Massachusetts, USA: "This image was made in January 2022. My daughter Rose, now a first year Fibers major at Savannah College of Art and Design, expressed an interest in doing some film photography. I acquired a couple of cameras for us, and we got started. I loaded my first roll of Tri-X into the F3 body that I was using. Having used this camera in the mid-1990s in my early years as a commercial photographer, I was trying to re-familiarize myself with the camera and I quickly came upon the long-lost double exposure lever! The image I've included here is the very first frame on the first roll of film in over 20 years. Rose was doing her homework at the far end of the dining room table, nice light coming in from the window to her right. The fact that I was using film made her much more willing to be photographed, which I've found to be a tremendous benefit of film. The first image is of Rose leaning on her hand, doing her homework. With the double exposure lever activated, my wife makes a serendipitous visit to give Rose a kiss. Rose shifts a bit and the second exposure happens during that kiss. A couple of days later we processed the film in the basement, and I was very happy with frame no. 1. With Rose in her final year of high school and soon off to college, this image really sums up the relationship between the two."

Joel Kirsh from Toronto, Canada: "This image was taken in 2012 on the small tourist railroad in the Verde Canyon, Arizona. It’s a lovely way to spend a few hours. I leaned over the coupling between two railway cars as the train was moving and took this photo at 1/20 sec., showing the coupling against the background motion blur of the track bed."

Francis Sullivan from Daajing Giids, Haida Gwaii (125 km off the north coast of British Columbia, Canada): "I was wandering with my camera in and around some derelict buildings surrounded by a small copse of trees when I came across this wall with the intriguing paint splatters, which I thought would make for any interesting B&W image. I got myself in position, exposure and ƒ-stop figured, and just as I was pressing the shutter button this young boy dashed across the frame in a blur...wow! Turns out there were a few of these kids mucking about with their bows and arrows and they were maybe thinking I was going to give them what for, so this one made a break for it. I love how he was captured against the similar shape and tones as the wall, and a much more interesting picture than the original wall one I had in mind. Serendipitous indeed!"

Carlos Quijana from Envigado, Colombia: "I made this photo thinking of the Blur constest. Here we have some boys playing soccer in a field in the city of Medellin, Colombia. I used a very slow speed of 1/3 sec., which made the photo blurred. The lens was a 35mm ƒ/2 Fuji X lens (50mm full-frame equivalent). Camera: Fujifilm XT-2."

Kristine Hinrichs from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA: "'The Iceman'—this is a shot of an ice fisherman on the lagoon adjacent to our Summerfest grounds at the Milwaukee lakefront. I nearly deleted the file as the image is so blurry—the only thing in focus is his right boot. However, I kept coming back to it, so I decided to keep it. I have actually printed this on a series of three silk panels—the outer two are silk gauze—and hung them one in front of the other suspended from rods on a bracket. That makes this image even more unusual. This was taken in January, 2023, on a very cold morning when only fishermen and photographers were dumb enough to be out."

Andrew Maclean from Highland, Victoria, Australia: "I've spent much of the past decade photographing what I imagine it would be like to record that moment before our eyes miraculously snap an object into focus—that 'other' decisive moment before all the obscure possibilities are sadly and regrettably excluded and we see only what we have learnt to see. As James Elkins says in his book The Object Stares Back, 'No matter how hard we look, we see very little of what we look at. We are blind to certain things and blind to blindness.' The de-focused image helps me understand how the constraints of convention can limit our visual language."

Collin J. Örthner from Red Deer, Alberta, Canada: "The last few bits of sunlight were trickling through Bower Woods in Red Deer, Alberta, one evening, and a straight image really didn't convey my feelings of a fleeting moment. Instead, I made a blur using camera movement which accomplished what I was after. I used a Sigma DP3 Merrill. Still wish I had these Merrills! Use a couple of DP Quattros now. Not quite the same, but still very impressive results!"

Jed Soane from Wellington, New Zealand: "For Christmas, 2016, one of my colleagues gave me a Secret Santa present of a cardboard kitset pinhole camera. It was the perfect present for me. It provided a chance to break from the tyranny of technology and get back to the basics of photography. I had great fun on Christmas day assembling it. We were staying on my brother-in-law's farm near Waipukurau, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand. The farm dogs needed a walk later in the day, as did I. I took my pinhole camera along and attempted to get some interesting landscape photos, but this 'environmental portrait' of Queen was the best of the roll. Queen died a couple of years later. My brother-in-law still cherishes this shot."

Ralph Saulnier from Lower Sackville, Nova Scotia, Canada: "This shot was taken last summer while exploring covered bridges in New Brunswick. I was surprised by a classic MG approaching, and, having no time to make adjustments, shot one anyway. Wrong setting, wrong lens, wrong everything = magic. Forever a favourite."

Jürgen Holfort from Rade, Germany (a little town 50km north of Hamburg): "Artist at an event at the IGA Park in Rostock. His movements with changing lights created some blur. (It is in the right direction, although I like it more upside down)."

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...And here's one more for good measure:

By Jim Simmons

Jim Simmons, from Wairarapa, New Zealand: "I switched from Nikon to Leica in the '70s because the Nikon glass was not sharp enough for me. And eventually to 4x5" to get even more detailed images. A couple of years ago, I started going in the opposite direction, forgoing clarity and expensive lenses and using cheap Chinese optics to create smears and blooms of colour and light. Then I post-process to tweak the colours and manipulate the tonal transitions even further. My favourite aspect of this image is how it vibrates and breathes as I look at it. It just won't sit still."

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Do you see what Jim is talking about here? That's truly weird...if you look at this picture for a while, it becomes an optical illusion—it's like the image is subtly molten. It appears to move. See if it happens for you if you look at it for a while. It works better for me at night, when the room is darkened. Try moving your head in and out as you look at it. Very weird effects!

I'd like to thank everyone who submitted pictures to the contest. We'll announce the prizewinners next week. Also, I'll add the "Honorable Mention" list then. It's quite long. 

By coincidence, The New Yorker just published an article on blur, called "An Alluring History of Photographic Blur," by Brian Dillon. Be sure to check that out as well!

Mike

Original contents copyright 2023 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

[Ed. note: I won't be adding Featured Comments on this post because I'm traveling—off to meet my first grandson for the first time! I also can't fix any errors, so please pardon me if something in the post goes amiss. So all comments will be added to the full Comments Section, which I'll try to keep up to date. From my phone, I can only approve or delete comments, nothing in between, so I won't be adding any responses or doing any editing. If you would be so kind, you could greatly help me out by please giving your comment the once-over before you hit the go button. Thanks! —Mike]

Comments

[Bob Johnston]

I really enjoyed looking at these. Different ways of seeing. How refreshing.

[Dan Montgomery]

I scoured computer folder after computer folder looking for the shot I wanted to enter. I have the print hanging on the wall behind me now, but I don't know where the electronic file is.
I thought it had an outside chance of being selected, but alas: Carlos' photo is kinda similar but clearly superior.
So I feel better now!

[There were actually lots of photos I could have chosen besides these. I'll do a post about editing these when I get back. It was more of a judgement call than usual, and it's usually a judgement call. --Mike]

[Albert Smith]

Good job from all. For me, Joel's image just jumps off the page (sreen?). Its so simple yet very well executed. A 1/20th of a second an still maintaining sharpness in the coupler mechanism is pretty good, since I'm assuming that the use of a tripod was not possible.

[JoeB]

MJ thank you for the post and the folks who sent in their photos. It is nice to see photographs and the explanations by their creators. It is nice to see real photos not AI creations, or those photoshopped to death photos.

[Benjamin Marks]

Fabulous!

[Ken]

(The first two images are showing as broken links for me, Mike.)

[Kurt Kramer]

At the top, Schermerhorn's image doesn't open for me, although Sailer's did. Wondering if anyone else has had trouble with Schermerhorn's.
I have loved reading the descriptions of the images and the acts of making them.

[Shelley Stallings]

I find Joel's railroad image very appealing, one I would be very proud of. Congratulations for all who entered, chosen or not. You are the folks who DO things, not just talk.

[Jnny]

Rick Schermerhorn's picture does not show up for me on Firefox.

[darlene]

My three favorites are all in a row: Collin J. Örthner, Jed Soane, and Ralph Saulnier. Great job, everyone!

[Merle]

For me, the first two photos do not display on the page; the first opens when I click on the link, the second does not.

[Bob Rosinsky]

I see everything crystal clear, although some of the pictures look a little blurry to me.

Kidding aside, it's a fine collection.

[Bob Rosinsky]

I was able to view all of the pictures this morning. As of now, Shermhorne's doesn't come up when I click on the link.

[Richard Parkin]

As others have said, the first two don’t show but the first does appear if I click and “open in background”. Same trick on second just shows a black rectangle.

[Richard John Tugwell]

For folks who can't see the top 2 images, right-click, "open in new tab","copy link address... and paste into address bar" or whatever options your browser offers, and then remove "-popup" from the end of the URL

[darlene]

Here is Rick Schermerhorn's lovely photo for those that cannot see it, albeit a smaller version:

[Richard Parkin]

On the the first two images. I signed with Typepad (I have an a/c but have never used it so it must be free) and the images appeared correctly.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

I'm mostly an anti-fan of unsharpness, and LOTS of these images are intriguing and interesting. Nice work, photographers and of course Mike who selected these out of rather more (I'm sure many of the ones he didn't quite select would also intrigue me!).

Alan Sailer's image is, I assume, deliberately not coming up without clicking on it since for some workplaces it might not be "safe". It's a nice image, not fully abstract, but the interest for me is color areas and their relationships.

Rick Schermerhorn's image I accept as pure abstraction. It's striking, somehow, beyond my ability to really see why I like it, which is why I so seldom venture near abstraction in my own photos.

John Gillooly's photo, the double exposure, is made of competing sharpish areas, and I really don't like that generally, including in this case. His explanation that it's juxtaposing 2 moments in time interestingly is entirely true, but does not make me like it any better. Just personal taste.

I'm really not planning on doing comments no every photo, but those 3 I needed to. Let's see, what else...

Joel Kirsh's train coupling photo is a technical achievement, but I find the background insufficiently blurred to really work.

Francis Sullivan's juxtaposition of a moving boy with a bow is interesting for accepting the background as sharp and the human as blurred, and for the hand holding the bow being the sharp bit of the figure, but again I find the blur not enough or not interesting enough of something, it doesn't really work together entirely for me.

Jed Soane's story is more interesting than the photo, sorry. This is a classic illustration of why I basically don't like pinhole photography.

Jim Simmons' photo works partly just by exploiting the loophole in the rules -- limiting only the width of photos means portrait-format works get displayed much bigger, which is nearly always an advantage. I do see little bits of the optical illusions or whatever it is that's causing it to sometimes seem like something is moving, and that's interesting.

[Bob Johnston]

FYI, I didn't have any trouble seeing the images in Chrome, Firefox or Edge. Strange problem.

[Jim Arthur]

This call for work has really opened my eyes. I will be working more with blur in the future. Lovely work by all. Congratulations to everyone selected.

After sitting with this set for a couple of days I find that I’m still drawn to the pictures that initially jumped out at me. Jed’s pinhole picture is lovely and has an Andrew Wyeth impressionistic quality about it and Collins picture is just fantastic. I have a harder time defining why Collins picture appeals to me. There is just something about it. I’ve finally decided it must be the sense of nature that seeps through. I spend a lot of time wandering in the wilderness with my camera. And even though I’m a color guy, Johns picture is really wonderful. I like how he was able to capture a fleeting moment of love that normally passes in the blink of an eye.

[Arg]

Still can’t see the top 2. Why can’t the article be edited to have them in the same format as all the other photos?

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Jim: Good point about Jed's picture being reminiscent of Wyeth! I hadn't made that connection, but yeah, very much. The landscape is the right kind of thing, and the color palette is very much right.