Dreamy Focus and Black and White Images

Swing, Tempe, Arizona, 2003

Black and white film used to be my go-to for 35mm film photography. Then in ~ 2003 I bought my first medium format camera and soon transitioned from shooting predominantly in B&W to using more color. I’ll save that journey into color for another blog post ;).

While I pay close attention to depth of field for subjects that I want in focus, with black and white compositions I think of focus as being more forgiving. Sometimes accidental blur is even welcome. There’s something about the romance and nostalgia of black and white that works with less-than-tack-sharp pictures.

The above image, Swing, was an impromptu shot as I walked through a neighborhood in Tempe, Arizona. If you look closely, you can see a faint 2nd person being pushed on a swing. It was the combination of my own motion and the subjects’ that gave a real sense of movement, whereas another couple sitting together on the grass, on the far right side of the frame, appears a lot clearer since they were relatively still.

The center, anchoring tree draws me in initially, then my eye wanders around and registers the outline of this scene. Swing is framed with a large white mat and hangs in our living room. Still after many, many years of having it up on the wall, I’ve not tired of it.

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~L