THE DIFFERENT WORLD
Observation and perception when our vision is out of focus Story and Photograph by Rit Limphongpand
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The blurry
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A good composition — includes the framing, shape, color and sharpness of a photograph. This is something most photographers are on a quest for. But sometimes, it is an out of focus shot that creates a more intriguing and abstract photograph. Since our eyes have photographic lenses, and we are always adjusting of a subject, how would our perception of a world be if the object that we wanted to see was out of focus? How would we see things and people? And how would we interact differently with the world around us? All of the photographs in this book have come from my hikes through Golden Gate Park to Ocean beach. These photographs are intended let our eyes see and imagine things “beyond” the obvious.
vision
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Imagine the world in front of
The first subject in this comparative focal experiment was a pine tree at the entrance of Golden Gate Park. The focused image is seen clearly as pine seeds. However, I saw just a blurry irregular shape of color. It turned out that there is a different perception between the two photographs. The unfocused made me think, what it would be like if all I can see with my eye sight is like the unfocused photograph and I must imagine what is in front of me.
you
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“You can't depend on your judgment when your imagination is out of ...
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focus”
— Mark Twain 9
A different perspective now and the world I see Is in front of me, and everything's wrong The grass was so much greener when it was next to me Now it's under me, am I where I belong?
Song
Out of Focus
Artist
Face to Face
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The world, it only seems to change from where you look Much different than the pictures that they took It's nothing like they said it would be 11
Perception on things that you
see 12
The next subject that I experimented on included aome flowers that I found not far away from the pine trees. I wanted to see the differences in a subject that has strong colors. After taking each type of shot and looking at them. I found out that there was not much different in shapes and form. I could easily imagine that out of focus images were flowers. And I felt attracted to the out of focus images more than the in focus images. My attention was drawn to the abstract yellow color circles maybe becuse they have more visual attraction. I felt like I wanted to interact with them more than the obvious focused flowers.
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see
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feel
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Details of the
subject
During my walk through the middle of the park, I took many shots of the subjects that have details. The subject that interested me the most was architecture. I took photographs of an entrance at Japanese Tea Garden because it had a lot of detail and ornament to experiment with. The out of focus photo is hardly to see in detail, only the shape is interesting. And I still can imagine what this is. For the focused image, I can see beautiful Japanese architectural details and ornamentation. I think if we are not able to see the object clearly, the world that we see in front of our eyes must seem very flat. This is because you can't categorize things and see the beautiful details of the environment that surrounds us.
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“God is in the...
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details”
— Ludwig Mies van der Rohe 23
If we are unable to see things in
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s
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The effect of
light
While I was taking some photographs of de Young Museum and the installations of art in the museum courtyard, I found an interesting shot of light see through the holes of the perforated and dimpled copper plate on the museum's exterior cladding. Both shots employ a lens flare effect. It is the light that shines through the circle holes makes all difference. The circle shape visually becomes hexagonal and connected to each other making for moreof a intriquing visual element in the out of focus image.
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The changing sequence of light
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When we are adjusting our vision
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Expression of
human
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After walking around three quarters of the park, I decided to stop at the Fly-Casting Pool to take some rest. I also wanted to take some photographs of people. When I now look at the in focus images, I see the emotions that appears on people. In contrast, I don't see any expressions in the out of focus shots. The question that comes to my mind is how do we interact with each other, if we can't see each other's expression or emotions? Somehow we could tell by the speaker's tone but emotions and expressions are an essential tool of communication. Although, if we were able to see the shape of a thing, but not each other's faces or emotions, the way that we communicate with each other would be entirely changed.
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“Feelings or emotions are the universal language and are to be honored. They are the authentic expression of who you are at your deepest...
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place”
— Judith Wright 33
The unlimited
sky
After hiking for six hours, I finally arrived at my destination - Ocean Beach. I took a lot of photographs of the ocean and sky's horizon in order to experiment with the perception of distance. Both images provide different aspects of perception. The focused image gives me a sense of distance of the sky horizon's. And in the out of focus image, it doesn't give much of depth perception, but instead it gives a visual that different from the focused image. It is like the sky and the ocean have combined with each other into one. It looks simple and yet it still attractive.
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The world of
perception
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The resulting out of focus photographs collapse space by removing the contours of landscapes, contrasts and perspective. As a result, it creates more subtle layers of light and shadow, color and luminosity. The photographs suggest space without describing it. The out of focus photographs have become more about the act of perception and interpretation than a literal viewing of the visual elements of the subject. What emerges from the out of focus subject is not fixed and remains in an endless state of abstract appearance. The images are more about the viewer's interpretation than the subject itself. If our world and our reality was like these out of focus photographs, we would act and live completely different from the world that we know now. We would have to rely more on our imagination and perception than usual—in order to interact with the world around us.
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