By Vladimir Brezina
This week’s Photo Challenge is Focus.
Isolating the main subject in sharp focus against a blurry background is often the beginning of a powerful photograph. But it’s easy to then lose sight of the fact that the blurry background is still there and can make or break the photo, no less than the main subject. It’s helpful to forget that the photo is of something and see it instead, for a moment, just as a two-dimensional plane of abstract shapes and colors…
The first Focus post was here.
Vladimir Brezina (RIP) 
Johna Till Johnson
Wind Against Current 
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Really like the first photo!
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One of my favorites, too :-)
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So pretty! Those colours…
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:-) Thanks!
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fabulous collection. ;)
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Thanks!!
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Me as well, I love the first one!!!
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:-)
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Pingback: Focus in the study | A mom's blog
These are some of your best yet.
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I do get inspired by these semi-abstract scenes, and then of course it was the fall in most of these photos… :-)
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Wow!
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:-) Thank you!
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A very nice presentation, almost like a tutorial with interesting aspects, thanks a lot, Vladimir! Have a great weekend.
Dina
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Just a thought, about how I see things… thanks, Dina!
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Pingback: Weekly Photo Challenge/ On the Road: Focus / Lines and Directions | What's (in) the picture?
very nice gallery!
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Thanks!!
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You have submitted beautiful examples for this week’s challenge.
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Thank you, Colline! :-)
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These are stunning!
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Thanks, Margaret!
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You’re welcome!
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Absolutely lovely, Vlad.
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Thanks so much, Lynn! :-)
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Beautiful collection of shots!
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Thank you!
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Very beautiful pictures!
Lovely shots!
Thank you for sharing.
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You are most welcome—thank you! :-)
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The reds are beautiful!
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I look especially for reds…
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I love autumn. It is my favorite time of the year. This is my pereception of a photo in focus. I like it very much :)
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Fall is coming soon—a bit too soon this year, actually…
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Stunning gallery illustrating the challenge perfectly!
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Thanks, Ruth!
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Sharp
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:-)
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striking autumn gallery vlad!
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Thank you so much! :-)
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Such beautiful examples Vlad! Love them all :-)
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Thanks so much, Madhu! :-)
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Pingback: Weekly Photo Challenge: Focus | To Breathe is to Write
Love the first one Vlad. Fall is upon us!
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Another couple of weeks of Summer, we hope! :-)
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Oh I am in no hurry!
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Love those Autumn colours!
Thanks ~ del
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You are most welcome, del!
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So pretty!
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Thank you! :-)
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Pingback: World Press Photo Challenge: Focus (3) | Bastet and Sekhmet
Very nice! I expected water/sailing/kayaking photos and loved these (although I love the others, too.)
janet
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Got to have a bit of variety ;-)
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You’re right that the background should be foremost in our mind. And speaking of a photograph as an abstract display in two dimensions, I came across a passage by G.K. Chesterton from his 1908 book Orthodoxy that contains this thought: “The artist loves his limitations: they constitute the THING he is doing. The painter is glad that the canvas is flat.”
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That’s very true! There is also Clement Greenberg’s emphasis on flatness… Thanks, Steve!
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And thanks for that article, which I just read.
I used to make side-by-side stereo pairs. Each half is completely flat, yet the brain creates a “real” illusion of depth by looking at the two halves together. I wonder if Greenberg ever had anything to say about that. When I visited the Dalí Museum in Figueres in 1985, I noticed that Dalí had done some side-by-side stereo paintings.
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It seems that Greenberg acknowledged the brain’s natural tendency to create three-dimensional perceptions from the two-dimensional surface, but argued that it’s precisely the opposition to that tendency, seen most clearly of course in abstract art, that distinguishes it as art.
It’s interesting to try to translate that argument to photography, which most people unquestioningly take as representational, and which indeed has taken over the old representational functions of painting.
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Great shots
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Thanks!!
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The light, color, and textures are wonderful!
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Thank you!!
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Absolutely beautiful, just gorgeous!
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So glad you like it! :-)
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Love that last image :)
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Excellent—thanks!!
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Love the first one, too :) didn’t you use the last one for another weekly photo challenge? In the background, I think…
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Yes, I did. I try not to reuse them, but sometimes they fit a second challenge so perfectly that I can’t help it… :-)
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I won’t throw the first stone there… :D
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I appreciate that ;-)
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Lovely photographs.
Thank you for liking my Forgiveness Window poem.
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You are most welcome, and thank you! :-)
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Beautiful, thanks:)
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You are most welcome! :-)
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