I know. But go look at fine art type magazines and you will see all sorts of things that distract you, but they are in good magazines. Try "Shots" as an example. Of course "fine art" doesn't just mean OOF or vignetting. It's so, so, uh, vague. A lot of the style of some FA I am ambivalent about. However, OOF foreground is not an automatic show stopper when you are producing FA images.
As an alternative to what you see as distracting the eye further with more foreground OOF, I see it as directing the eye to the real subject, which is the solitary structure. I say this because our eyes look for the focus. If the entire image is OOF except the main focus point, your eye goes directly to it. The OOF area leads the eye in.
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Yes. I know. Art is about experimenting with what works. OoF foregrounds generally don't work for me, but there are exceptions. When I see a close-up portrait of someone with sharp eyes but a fuzzy nose, I think the person looks a bit odd. I wonder if the photographer really wanted the shot to turn out like that, or whether it was just a mistake or a limitation of the equipment; ie. light poor and aperture wide using a telephoto lens with a camera that didin't have low noise at high ISO, like some of the early Nikons.
Your point about the OoF foreground leading the eye to the main subject of interest is not convincing. Generally, it's lines in the composition that lead the eye to another part of the image. In this composition from Chris, there's not much there of interest in the solitary structure on the water, so the eye is likely to start wandering and return to the grassy edge of the lake (or river), searching for meaning. That's when the OoF foreground becomes distracting for me and why I suggested (tongue in cheek, of course) a dancing girl on that solitary structure. I would then not give a toss about the OoF foreground.
Of course, there could be other reasons why one sometimes sees these portraits of personalities with fuzzy noses in weekend glossy magazines. Perhaps the interviewee has a pimple on his/her nose, or is just embarrassed about the state of his/her nose; it's too big, or too squat or too small, whatever. The photographer obliges and as a true professional says, 'Don't worry. I'll make it out-of-focus'.
