Out Of Focus, Once More

Missed focus. Again. And no, it wasn’t intentional. This wasn’t a conceptual experiment, nor a nod to dreamlike abstraction. It was simply a technical failure, shot with a manual lens, rushed framing, and an optimistic assumption that I’d nailed the hyperfocal distance. I hadn’t. Still, I kept the frame.

It’s a street in Munich, pigeons pecking at the ground, firemen walking down the centre. A homeless encampment crowds the left edge. None of it sharp. But despite that—or maybe because of it—the image speaks. Context persists. Silhouettes are enough. The story doesn’t vanish with the detail.

Technically, the photo lacks precision: the aperture was too wide, depth of field too shallow, and there was no time for a second shot. But compositionally, the structure holds. The central vanishing point and the symmetry of the street pull the eye in. Softness aside, it reads.

Would I publish it in a feature spread? No. Would I delete it? Also no. Photography doesn’t always need perfection to be worth keeping. Sometimes it’s just about being there.