Interference

for any camera
Sometimes you can make people try harder — look harder — at a photo by interfering with the subject in some way. You can fool around with focus, blur, exposure, filters, and a zillion other ways of "messing" with the picture. And very often these "degraded" images are much more interesting to the viewer. (This site looks at a number of ways of interfering with the image, including the infamous Lens Baby.)

In this case we decided to build a sequence where we got more and more in the way of the subject in order to think about interference.

Bottom Line: Making the subject harder to see may involve the viewer more actively in the seeing.

70mm, f22, Speedlites
woman
woman behind hand
woman behind hand and pipe
woman behind hand and pipe and book
woman behind hand and pipe and book and scale
woman behind hand and pipe and book and scale and bell
woman behind hand and pipe and book and scale and bell and flower
woman almost gone
woman
woman behind hand
woman behind hand and pipe
woman behind hand and pipe and book
woman behind hand and pipe and book and scale
woman behind hand and pipe and book and scale and bell
woman behind hand and pipe and book and scale and bell and flower
woman almost gone
woman
woman behind hand
woman behind hand and pipe
woman behind hand and pipe and book
woman behind hand and pipe and book and scale
woman behind hand and pipe and book and scale and bell
woman behind hand and pipe and book and scale and bell and flower
woman almost gone
Left
Right

Here Nicole is resting her head on a table, we know not why, but she does look a bit sad or at least pensive.

Now a small sculpture of a hand interferes with our view of Nicole. The plot has thickened — whatever she is so pensive about might have to do with the hand.

Adding in a 60's vintage hash pipe adds another layer of distraction to the photo.

As we add in a book, Nicole starts to become just a part of the photo — not the subject any more.

Adding in the face of the antique scale doesn't cover much more of Nicole, but the brightness of the dial is pretty distracting.

The bell is really disrupting our view of Nicole. Now just her eye is clearly in view — bit framing her eye through the assemble "stuff" does make her eye stand out much more than in a standard portrait.

The flower just adds another visual texture, further framing in her eye.

The little glass bottles, being close to us and out of focus, add a lot of "noise" to the photo, and tend to make it look both more chaotic, but also less formal, as if we really did happen upon Nicole feeling pensive at the local antique shop.

Here Nicole is resting her head on a table, we know not why, but she does look a bit sad or at least pensive.

Now a small sculpture of a hand interferes with our view of Nicole. The plot has thickened — whatever she is so pensive about might have to do with the hand.

Adding in a 60's vintage hash pipe adds another layer of distraction to the photo.

As we add in a book, Nicole starts to become just a part of the photo — not the subject any more.

Adding in the face of the antique scale doesn't cover much more of Nicole, but the brightness of the dial is pretty distracting.

The bell is really disrupting our view of Nicole. Now just her eye is clearly in view — bit framing her eye through the assemble "stuff" does make her eye stand out much more than in a standard portrait.

The flower just adds another visual texture, further framing in her eye.

The little glass bottles, being close to us and out of focus, add a lot of "noise" to the photo, and tend to make it look both more chaotic, but also less formal, as if we really did happen upon Nicole feeling pensive at the local antique shop.