Inga

I'm expanding my blurry fetish into portraits and have started to recruit models. These two images of Inga were shot less than a minute apart.

So what's with all the blurry? I've asked myself that a lot recently. All of my work for the past seven years has been tack sharp. Much of it was shot with a 4x5 film camera because it delivers incredible sharpness. I know, I say blurry and you think Uta Barth. Very good but Uta's work looks blurred only because she's photographing the space between herself and her subject. She's actually focusing on air. She wants to call attention to something we don't normally notice, namely the volume of space around and between us and how that empty space is so fundamental to how we perceive the world. She's also interested in getting us to notice the quality of light around us, so many of her shots contain the trace of shadows and sunlight.

Uta Barth

Ground #78

I've always found Uta's work conceptually fascinating and aesthetically seductive. It differs from what I'm doing in that she's calling attention to the unnoticed. I'm more interested in the mystery that comes from never knowing the full depth of the people, and things, in our lives that we do notice. The possibilities and fantasy of the unknown capture my imagination more than even the most fantastical known. I think the above portraits effectively do that because they're Goldilocks blurry - enough to make the details a mystery but not so much that you can't tell that you're looking a woman…likely a young woman but even that distinction I wouldn't know for sure if I weren't the photographer.

If you're in the Los Angeles area and are interested in being a model, please let me know.