OUT OF FOCUS

Out of focus

Photographs can be the artist's greatest friend and at the same time, our most insidious enemy.

A photograph, unlike the human eye, can have everything in focus all at the same time. You will know what I mean when you look at a snapshot of a beach holiday. Those family members splashing around in the shallows are as much in focus as the yachts out in the sea.  In real life, if we are looking at a person on the beach, then those yachts are in our peripheral vision and they’re blurry. As soon as we turn our attention to the yachts, the people on the beach become blurry.

This is why photographs taken with some depth of field look more life-like. By "depth of field” I mean a photograph where the main object is in focus and other background and foreground objects are blurred. This is nearer to how the human eye works.

Painting this way is not easy and in many cases not even thought about.

Not always but often, a painting will have a focus - a place where the artist is drawing the viewers attention  and where everything else will be supporting this focus.  A photograph rarely presents a focus because the whole scene is sharp and crisp. It's the artist who “manufactures" focus and it shows there is more to painting than slavishly copying the reference  - no matter how expertly the copying has been done.

Painting 'in’ and ‘out’ of focus is more than just sharp and blurry.  Focus can also be achieved through colour, tone, contrast, detail and busyness.  Those things that are not the hero of the painting need to support the star rather than  compete with it.  Tone down the minor players, simplify their shapes and keep their detail to a minimum.

Foregrounds with too much detail can hold back focus elsewhere. It’s a trap to think what’s close has to be detailed….. unless it is of itself the focus. It's always worth trying in a landscape.

A mixture of subtlety and exaggeration is the key to keeping focus in a painting. It is a very worthy exercise to look for this in other artists works and it can feel miraculous when you  achieve it in your own works.

Happy painting!

Mike Barr.