Hi All,

This is my first post and I hope I can explain my question.

A brief background and explanation: I am very new to art photography and have been experimenting with photographing everyday, usually natural objects and cropping/editing them to reveal the interesting compositions I see in them. Sometimes the results end up being quite abstract- not looking like the original objects but like something else- or like nothing really definable.

I have taken some of the best of these and had them printed, matted and framed. I have recently gotten back a very large print of one of my favorites and I've noticed something in the print I hadn't seen on the computer: a large portion of the print is rather blurred. Now, I don't mean to say that this necessarily doesn't "work"- although it's not the background that's blurred (there is no background, really.)

The photo reads sort of like an impressionist painting, which is what I wanted but I'd like to know if you think that having a portion somewhat blurred is necessarily a not-great quality, when the rest of the photo is in sharper focus and shows more detail.

I mean, in some ways it would make more sense if all of it was blurred (or none of it was blurred, of course) but what if only part of it is? I think it suggests motion--, in a good way-- but my husband, whose opinion I respect, is left feeling a little uneasy because of this.

Thanks for any thoughts or ideas you can pass along.

If there's another sub-forum this would better be posted under, let me know.