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Blur




I've always liked a bit of blur. It seems uniquely photographic as choosing what to focus on is an essential part of the process of making a photograph. The camera also has the ability to record a type of blur that we couldn't normally witness; motion blur, as we can't do long exposures with our human eyes (yet).

I've been running quite a lot recently and I rarely wear my glasses or my contact lenses. This may sound contrary, even dangerous but I run off road around Chorlton Ees, which feels like countryside and means I'm not competing with cars, buses and pedestrians for space. I've realised I actually enjoy how the world looks in this situation, blocks of colour, interesting loosely defined shapes, everything slightly soft, a bit less real and harsh. 

 These thoughts came back to me this weekend whilst I was sat in the back of a car being driven through The Lake District. We went through many weather systems from bright sunshine to torrential downpours and with four people in the car the windows steamed up to create an impressionistic northern landscape for us in the back. Seeing the results reminded me that the other thing I like about blur is that our brains try to fill the gaps, make sense of the fog, and so we each interpret the picture in a slightly different way.
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