{"id":19378,"date":"2014-07-12T18:55:01","date_gmt":"2014-07-13T01:55:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/?p=19378"},"modified":"2016-09-23T22:14:26","modified_gmt":"2016-09-24T05:14:26","slug":"why-sharpness-is-overrated-in-street-photography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/12\/why-sharpness-is-overrated-in-street-photography\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Sharpness is Overrated"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Copyright:
Copyright: Henri Cartier-Bresson \/ Magnum Photos \/ SPAIN. Valencia. 1933. Inside the sliding doors of the bullfight arena<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sharpness is over-rated in street photography. Even Henri Cartier-Bresson<\/a> once said, “Sharpness is a bourgeois concept.”<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I remember when I first saw one of HCB’s\u00c2\u00a0exhibitions in person in Paris, I was surprised by how soft most of his shots were. And many of his photos were significantly out of focus (thinking about the famous shot of the man in a bullfighter’s ring in Spain (above).<\/p>\n

When I stated street photography, I was obsessed with sharpness. This of course, was due to all the nerds on gear forums who showed corner to corner sharpness tests on brick walls. I was suckered into thinking a sharp photo was a good photo.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

However once I discovered the work or Daido Moriyama<\/a>, I realized that a good photo didn’t need to be sharp. In-fact, a grainy, out of focus, and soft photo often had more mood, emotion, and soul than an uber-sharp photo:<\/p>\n

\"Copyright:
Copyright: Daido Moriyama<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Even when I shoot digital, I try to get my digital shots to look like my film shots. I add grain and grittiness — and what I get in return is a less clinical image.<\/p>\n

And of course when shooting film, I make an image that (to me) has more character and soul. I get physical light hitting a piece of paper, recording the light– rather than a computer recording a bunch of 1’s and 0’s.<\/p>\n

So what does this mean practically in street photography?<\/p>\n

Well, you don’t need a super high resolution camera or a super sharp lens. Don’t get me wrong, I love high detail (large format Richard Avedon images amaze me) and sharpness for the aesthetic, but that alone doesn’t make a good photograph.<\/p>\n

\"Copyright:
Copyright: Jacob Aue Sobol \/ Magnum Photos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Some of my favorite photos are the ones that are gritty and imperfect. The work of Daido Moriyama<\/a>, Anders Peterson<\/a>, and Jacob Aue Sobol<\/a> all speak to me on a deep level. With color photography, I love prefer the film work of Alex Webb<\/a>, Steve McCurry, Martin Parr<\/a>, Stephen Shore<\/a>, William Eggleston<\/a>, and Joel Sternfeld<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Don’t be a slave of the camera. Make the camera your slave (what Araki said that Daido Moriyama did). Daido has been using a cheap film point and shoot Ricoh GR more or less his entire career — and made much more emotional shots than his peers with super slick Leicas or medium format cameras. He shot with his heart, soul, and gut. While I don’t like a lot of Daidos photos individually, I like the mood I get from his photos as a whole.<\/p>\n

So don’t worry about gear, nerd sharpness tests, and lens chromatic abbreviation blah blah blah.<\/p>\n

Who cares how sharp your lenses are? It is far more important to have a sharp eye and a loving heart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sharpness is over-rated in street photography. Even Henri Cartier-Bresson once said, “Sharpness is a bourgeois concept.” I remember when I first saw one of HCB’s\u00c2\u00a0exhibitions in person in Paris, I was surprised by how soft most of his shots were. And many of his photos were significantly out of focus (thinking about the famous shot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19381,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-posts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/14457674077_52f35af865_c.jpg?fit=800%2C530&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}