...It's like my mind is on af and keeps tracking.
2. Abstractions in painting are always in focus, distorted, skewed, etc, but alway in focus.
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For a test, take the OOF image apply WC filter
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Wyndham, I like the image of an autofocus brain that can stop searching for focus- even I can relate to the frustration that can cause!
It's an interesting comment you make that abstracted paintings are always "in focus". I know what you mean, but wonder how such an essentially "optical" characteristic can be applied to a painting? I had the pleasure of viewing some of canadian artist [a href=\"http://www.tomthomson.org/groupseven/harris.html]Lawren Harris'[/url] paintings this weekend at the local art gallery. His work, they way that he portrayed Canadian landscapes, was very influential to my artistic development early on. My few attempts at painting usually looked like thrown-away Lawren Harris canvases! His paintings are, as you describe, "in focus", but he discards the details of the scene to concentrate on the larger forms. A few examples:
What's interesting is that Harris began in a fairly representational style, and by the end of his career had evolved into what might be (although probably not) called "pure" abstacts.
An advantage of using a paintbrush instead of a camera on broad landscape scenes is that you can selectively choose where to include, or exclude, detail. With a camera, it's all or none (unless, of course, you're close enough to your subject that a narrow depth of field can have an effect).
I'm interested to know what you think is gained by applying the "watercolor" filter in photoshop to an out-of-focus image? Is it that it becomes more "recognizable"? more similar to images that you are familiar with? Although, as I've mentioned, I shy away from using the computer to create images myself (although I have no problem with others doing so), I'm interested in understanding the difference in peoples reaction to images that have been abstracted or distorted on a computer, or by any of the techniques that have been mentioned in this thread (camera movement, multiple exposure, "defamiliarization", etc.)
Thanks again for adding your thoughts,
Jonathan