Blurring is probably the main new idea that photography brought to the art world. Both blurring to show motion (in several ways) and blurring to show depth of field are very common photographic techniques, and all photographers should know how to use them effectively.
What's less common is taking a completely static scene and intentionally moving the camera while shooting. I've seen a couple of attempts at making intentionally blurred images this way, with some amount of success by Alain Briot, less so with most others. Mostly, I find it pretensious, a sort of anti-art breaking the rules just for the sake of breaking the rules, and I have shied away from doing it intentionally. However, I can't avoid getting shaken pictures with some frequency (especially when using a long lens), and ever so occasionally one of them gets a special expression of its own that's actually better than what a sharp picture of the same scene would have been. Here are two that I particularly like.
The first one is from Garmisch-Partenkirchen, taken while driving past some scattered houses in a bus. Between the clouds, the dirt on the window, and the shake, this image has a desolate quality and a dreaminess, as of half-forgotten places on the outskirts on reality. It works mainly because the blur is parallel with the houses, where it's most obvious, and isn't really noticable on the forest.
The second one is from Englischer Garten, and in this case my shake is very random and even across the photo, though with areas where it is not noticable. It gives an impressionistic style that removes the image from the mundane and adds some mystery, a sense of ages past and idyllic French villages.
What's less common is taking a completely static scene and intentionally moving the camera while shooting. I've seen a couple of attempts at making intentionally blurred images this way, with some amount of success by Alain Briot, less so with most others. Mostly, I find it pretensious, a sort of anti-art breaking the rules just for the sake of breaking the rules, and I have shied away from doing it intentionally. However, I can't avoid getting shaken pictures with some frequency (especially when using a long lens), and ever so occasionally one of them gets a special expression of its own that's actually better than what a sharp picture of the same scene would have been. Here are two that I particularly like.
The first one is from Garmisch-Partenkirchen, taken while driving past some scattered houses in a bus. Between the clouds, the dirt on the window, and the shake, this image has a desolate quality and a dreaminess, as of half-forgotten places on the outskirts on reality. It works mainly because the blur is parallel with the houses, where it's most obvious, and isn't really noticable on the forest.
The second one is from Englischer Garten, and in this case my shake is very random and even across the photo, though with areas where it is not noticable. It gives an impressionistic style that removes the image from the mundane and adds some mystery, a sense of ages past and idyllic French villages.
Which is of course a total lie, but that's photography for you.
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