Photo of the Week – July 26, 2013

This week’s photo is a great example of using the camera in an unintended way to create a unique visual image. It was taken on the beach in the seaside town of La Bernerie-en-Retz, on France’s west coast. The photographer’s choice of using a manual focus to completely eliminate any point of sharpness in the photograph creates a certain abstraction that recalls Impressionist paintings from the likes of Cézanne, Monet and Renoir, to name a few. What I find quite beautiful is the way that the photograph expresses quite a strong narrative between the four figures and their surroundings. Despite the lack of focus point, a strong sense of story is conveyed through the image, and allows the viewer to imagine the scenario for themselves.

photo by Jean-François Gornet [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Flickr