I took this photograph in 2013 in central London. And haven't thought about it much since. Until stumbling across it in a folder recently. I still remember the moment I pressed the shutter, and the feeling of disappointment when I reviewed it afterwards and saw the motion blur and lack of focus. It's funny how differently we respond to images with the passage of time.
12 years on, older, wiser, and still unsure why he was using a compact camera to photograph his bagel, I have a newfound fondness for this picture. It tells a story, slightly blurry like our memories become the further we travel from the moment.
Photographs are the physical representation of nostalgia, showing us a removed moment, positive or negative. It can trigger emotions deep within us and transport us back. The motion blur in this image eludes to that chaotic bustle of central London, the hurried snap, the frenetic street as our paths crossed in an instant, before we disappeared into the crowds. His ambiguous expression captured forever in this photograph. Is he surprised, confused, annoyed, hungry? You don't need perfect focus to wonder this.
The story of this photograph is as mundane as they come; I was walking along Oxford Street and this man, presumably a tour guide of some kind, appeared out of a bagel shop, half eaten bagel perched atop a newspaper precariously squeezed between his fingers, compact camera in the other hand trying to snap a photo. All while walking London's crowded street. He was obviously short on time, busy, and had somewhere to be. He caught my eye immediately with the beret, moustache, waistcoat, newspaper in hand. It was all very esoteric and eccentric.
As the laws of motion dictate, travelling in opposite directions meant we passed each other at speed, and I barely had time to raise my camera, let alone check my settings. I barely got the viewfinder to my eye in time, hence the angle, exaggerating his askance expression.
My shutter speed was too low, the lens to slow to focus, or possibly my focus point was outside the centre of the frame. Either way, I did not get the shot I had wanted. It was a blink and miss it moment, and I'd failed to capture it. I was annoyed, disappointed, and left the image as a RAW file in a folder, destined to be unseen like almost all my other photographs are.
But now, I think this blurry photograph tells more of a story than I initially thought; it has motion, emotion, energy; the lack of focus compliments the quizzical expression. I don't think being in focus would have detracted from that, it almost certainly would have been a fun image, but maybe less interesting as a result.
Instead, this imperfect photograph has its own character and works on its own level. And ultimately that's what matters when we go into the streets to document our world around us. If you're trying to capture life, you need to capture the chaos of it. New technology and tools like Google's Best Take or Apple's editing features enable us to crop, blend, merge and modify images at the press of a button, removing any imperfection, fixing 'mistakes', and in the process sanitising photographs. We're removing the chaos of life in search of social-media-presented perfection. But our world is imperfect.
Sometimes, blur is good. Blur is fun. Blur just is. Embrace it. Don't disregard an image because it doesn't meet the faux rules of internet photographers who demand everything is pin-sharp. Don't let modern auto-focus limit you creatively by being too good. And don't edit or correct something deemed a mistake - make it a feature, or just acknowledge it for what it is. If the image tells a story or captures a moment in time you feel is worth capturing, then small imperfections are merely part of that story and should be retained. We don't need AI or Photoshop to edit our existence into bland perfection. Where's the fun in that?
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