Depth of Field

Depth of Field is something that, generally, is applied to photographers.  However, it's interesting to look at when you apply it to master artists' work.  It's also interesting to think about for your own art and contemplate just how the eye works and what it's really seeing.

Depth of Field refers to the depth that the person looking at a scene is focusing on.  The eye is incredible, when you really think about it, because it focuses on different things in a scene so quickly that you don't really notice that you're quickly focusing on things that are very near you then very far away from you.  But if you really look at what you're seeing, you'll notice that the stuff that you're not focusing on is blurry.

It's the blur, or what is not in your focus, that I'm interested in.  For a while, it was considered "all the rage" to play with "Tilt Shift Focus" settings on some great works of art.  Wet Canvas took it a little further and explained what was really going on with the concept by applying Depth of Field concepts to it.

What I think is so interesting about Depth of Field is that photographers try to capture what the artists' eye does.  An canvas-type artist (one who works in two dimensions, or flat, but tries to create a three dimensional piece of art through the use of shading and optical illusions) puts their entire scene in focus.  There's no "blur" in a painting, just less features.  The paint doesn't actually "blur," though.  Ink and pencil work also utilizes the idea of blur, but doesn't actually blur them.

It certainly makes you wonder what a blurred painting would look like!  Perhaps that's where abstract originated from!