(Almost) completely out of focus shots!

Because of an awesome shot by @LouHolland in the weekly C&C thread, I was reminded of a very interesting thread in another forum, where the premise was to show captures where everything is (ideally intentionally but of course happy accidents count as well) completely out of focus.

So if you have got some interesting images to share which fall into that category, I would appreciate it, if you would share them here with everyone! I‘ll post some of my simple close-up 'bokeh experiments' below but of course all kinds of images are welcome as long as (almost) nothing - at least recognizable - is in clear focus. (So no regular panning shots, as great as they look and no sharp and detailed single blades of grass or the likes 😉 If it‘s really abstract and the focus point not obvious, like it might be possible with a spider web in some lighting conditions, that would be fine for example!) I‘m not sure what to think about ICM shots (intentional camera movement) but if they’re sufficiently blurry I personally wouldn‘t object to those.

Catch me with your can! by simple.joy, on Flickr

Bokeh Bridge by simple.joy, on Flickr

A triangular approach on squaring the circle by simple.joy, on Flickr)

And yet... there is joy! by simple.joy, on Flickr

While I always have fun while creating these, I feel like I‘ve still got so much to learn when abtract photography like that is concerned. To me it seems to require a certain kind of thinking which might take quite a bit of experience to be develop in any significant capacity. So if you have some ideas, tips & tricks you can share, it would be wonderful as well!

I‘m looking forward to your wonderful out of focus shots!

EDIT: I've changed the title and description a little bit in order to also make room for "almost completely out of focus shots", which I think, a greater number of people have experimented with. Like something where it's very hard to pinpoint the plane of focus or the main subject is clearly out of focus... Here's one example of what I'm thinking about:

On a roll on the net.. or so I thought! by simple.joy, on Flickr

Right, it‘s not - but I think it‘s a combination of movement in the shot + camera motion! So by my definition above it would count!

Great capture @Sagittarius - thanks! Do you like experimenting with (camera) motion?

Not my cup of tea, but here are a couple more

Storm by Marc Aubry, sur Flickr

Nikon D200, nikkor AF-S 28-70mm f/2.8D IF-ED

Sorry by Marc Aubry, sur Flickr

Panasonic Lumix G1, Panasonic Lumix G 14-45mm f/3.5-5.6

I am dazzled by Marc Aubry, sur Flickr

Nikon D500 50mm

Nice series- love the last one. Looks like a variant of Novel Coronavirus SARS...lol

I'm glad you alerted the Wednesday thread to this fun topic, simplejoy! Here is intentional slow shutter speed combined with a tiny bit of panning + one I shot out of focus on purpose to possibly use as a background or texture-type file with my playful processing. Thanks much!

Thank you very much for showing these shots - they are great. I particularly love the first one with the birds. The shapes created by the wings are awesome. It's a great idea using oof shots as fill/texture. I think I've only done that once and I don't have any real collection of shots for that... perhaps it would be worth considering.

When I bought my first camera (around 13 years ago) I experimented a lot with camera movement and light and particularly enjoyed shooting out of the moving car (no, I was not driving myself... don't worry!) or train. Here's one such capture:

Light doesn‘t move in a straight line by simple.joy, on Flickr

Even though it doesn't completely fit the "out of focus" theme of this topic, it clearly is impacted by several factors in order to fit the criteria stated above.

Honolulu Zoo

Kodachrome 64, Drum Scan

1987 or '88 my wife and I were at the Honolulu Zoo on its front lawn/park area on a Sunday. Noon hour. Many families were having picnic lunches and it was obvious that the park was a popular neighborhood center of community, beyond its function as the entrance area to the zoo.

There was an enormous flock of pigeons gathered in one area. I've never seen one of such size. Someone must have been feeding them popcorn or something. Every 30 seconds or so, the entire flock would take off, rising straight up about 10-15 feet, then settling back again. Each flight was accompanied by frantic cooing, but much more so by the incredible sound of their wings flapping and the rushing of air.

Almost like clockwork, the flock rose and settled, over and over. Endlessly. With that incredible mixture of sound. It was almost mesmerizing.

From about ten feet away, for five consecutive "flights" I shot into the dense cloud of birds. It was impossible to see any detail. It was just a blinding white blur of bird bodies and wings and cooing and rushing of air. I had an inexpensive early Canon EOS film SLR and a 70-210 Canon zoom. I was shooting somewhere near the long end of the zoom range. My first auto focus camera. I just hoped the AF system would lock onto something in the dazzling cloud of feathers each time.

Everyone has had the experience of discovering something they hadn't anticipated in a shot. Positive or negative. This was especially true during the film era, when one often didn't see results of slide film exposures until weeks after running rolls through the camera.

Four of the images were uninteresting blurred shots of pigeons flying around. This is the fifth image. The little boy with the red shirt and blue pants, his mouth seemingly wide and his eyes open in wonderment, in the midst of the mass of flying birds was actually many yards behind the flock, sitting with his family, eating lunch. I never saw him when I was shooting. But the camera did. He was never part of the scene I was seeing. But there he is! And he makes the image.

I scanned this slide sometime in 1993 and, since then, first as an IRIS "Giclee" print and now as an Epson large format print has been hanging in our house.

I show this image for many reasons. One is that I present it as an argument that sharpness can be an over-rated element of image-making. Nothing in this image is sharp. Nothing. There are out-of-focus issues, lens blur, camera motion blur, subject movement blur everywhere. I love it.

Rich

Why would you start a thread inviting folks to post photos that are "completely out of focus" (your words) and then post a slew of images with the subject in focus but blurred due to movement?

If you wanted to share photos featuring motion blur, you should've invited folks to post photos featuring a heavy dose of motion blur.

Here‘s my thoughts/doubts on that in the initial post:

From my experience in other forums/on flickr it‘s often quite challenging to tell with certain kinds of images what makes them blurry. So, while I‘m not looking for movement shots in the first place, I‘m personally not objecting to those which are suffiently blurry overall because a.) they often have a similar look and b.) I‘d honestly rather have others post images which don‘t fit the theme completely than no one posting anything at all (which is not unlikely to happen here as well)!

But thanks for letting me know anyways - it‘s noted and as mentioned, if several people have a problem with it, I can change the thread title/OP accordingly!

… and just to clarify: I didn‘t post more than a single image with movement blur and that was in response, not in the OP.

If you have some out of focus shots yourself, please share them as well - I'd love to have some more samples, so it's easier to get what this topic is about originally!

I often focus off the point I want to be sharp.
I often take soft and blurred pictures because I moved the camera or my subject moved.
But completely out of focus? Very seldom.

I went out to backyard to shoot some flowers with EL-Nikkor 2.8/50 mm focused behind infinity.
Aperture was full open, so everything is out of focus.

I totally get that - it's not the first thing that comes to mind... 😅

I have to remind myself of the possibility from time to time as well. However I think it's a great way of learning to perceive things in a different way. It might also help improving the skill of finding suitable backgrounds for future in-focus shots...

Looks very nice with those colors - thanks!

Here's a very simple one I took in the hotel room when I was on vacation recently:

Launch by simple.joy, on Flickr

Sorry about the brain cramp re motion blur vs. out of focus 😏 I'm finding a lot of interest and inspiration in the creativity shared in your thread, so thank you! I believe this one is 99% out of focus - if my aging eyes don't deceive. I was shooting directly into the early morning sun, through a bush covered with dew.