Photography to see the world - or to create one

Blueberry leaves, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

While taking photos today and later looking at them it was interesting to ponder how photography is at the same time similar to the ordinary way of looking at the world, and different from it.

It is not only that we have two eyes and stereo vision, or that the brain actually "makes up" a view of the world from glipses put together from partial views between rapid eye movements. It is also that each type a camera (and the lens in use) have their own characteristics, generating a quite special type of world view.

In fact, some are even of the opinion that film cameras and digital cameras perform differently, digital being precise and bright but also flat, without a three dimensional impact.

I'm slowly learning to know the kind of view the Panasonic LX3 generates, but still occasionally there are surprises. I do like the f/2.0 lens, which makes it possible to do background blurriness in macro shots, even though in a limited fashion.

I can definetely understand that kind of photography where the blurriness is maxed with full-frame or bigger sensors and long tele objectives. It is a way of removing complexity from the photos, painting with light. However, it is different from the way we are usually looking at the world with our eyes.

Another similar thing is motion blur. The eye does have a similar capacity, as shown by the way we fool ourselves in the movies, thinking that a rapidly changing series of images is "live". But the camera is a controlled way of making use of the blur. Motion blur is often used as a way of removing unneeded complexity from photos - though sometimes also in the opposite way.

What I have been looking at with interest recently is photographs where these kinds of effects have been used for a great artistic effects - out-of-focus blurriness, motion blur, multiplex exposure, and so on.

I'm interested to experiment with these techniques, but so far I haven't managed to produce anything worthwhile. Just ordinary photos serving mainly a documentary function.