Two chiming Baoding excersise balls, resting on coat-snaps, on a coaster. An LED flashlight lights the subjects overhead, and it's viewed through an old, scuffed-up bifocal magnifying lens.
The bifocal on the magnifying lens is centered on the foreground ball, and gives the illusion of a focused outline on that subject, though it clearly is not.
Manual focus on the lens scuffs provides a fractal, chaotic aspect to the light captured in each imperfection. This added an element of "dissonance" to an otherwise harmonized composition.
Since my subjects were black, white, and silver, I figured I wasn't sacrificing any color when I went with the B&W shot.
Anyone can take a blurry, messy shot: my assumption was that keeping it engaging was the challenge. I know some will think I have a perfectly focused ball in front, without noticing that the magnifying lens is the only thing in focus, with my subjects blurred, and obscured by the scuffs/scratches.
That's okay - my interest is to have some original, unique shots in my 'folio, not "me too" sample shots.
In summary: I threw light at some silver balls to see what would happen, and showed it to the viewer through a bifocal magnifying glass.
Camera Model Name Canon PowerShot SX100 IS
Shooting Mode Shutter Speed Priority AE
My Colors Mode B&W
Tv (Shutter Speed) 13
Av (Aperture Value) 8.0
Light Metering Evaluative
Exposure Compensation -2
ISO Speed 80
Lens 6.0 - 60.0 mm
Focal Length 6.0 mm
Digital Zoom None
Image Size 538x436
Image Quality Fine
Flash Off
AF Mode Manual Focus
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I would not have considered this as completely meeting the challenge, but it's really cool looking. (It was an odd and fascinating challenge, and I can understand your take on it.) I wouldn't have figured out exactly what it was. Very creative to put this all together in such a way.
I would humbly direct anyone "missing the blur" to the photos actual subjects - the silver balls, the light reflected on the backdrop, and the reflections on the bottom: all blurred by the magnifying glass. And yeah, the scratches/scuffs add a "messy" element, since I doubt anyone would shoot through such a lens if it were mounted to the camera because it would otherwise "mess up" the image.
Defintion of blur (as per the online dictionary resources): unsharp image areas, created or caused by subject or camera movement, or by selective or inaccurate focusing. Lack of sharpness, usually at the edges of light and dark areas of an image.
So - blurry subjects, messy "filter", and an array of disorganized scratches/scuffs and light refraction/projection elements add up to: a compliant take on the "blurry mess" theme.
Hope this makes my take on the challenge more lucid to the naysayers, and to the Lords Of Unoville.
And no, metatate, the actual subjects, not just the "reflected" elements are blurry. And congratulations on a fantastic entry, btw - it was one of my top picks as well!! turbulance is definitely worthy.
Thanks to all the voters, commentors, and those who appreciated my take on the challenge!
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