“Sharpness is a bourgeois concept.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson - Machedo Plaza Balcony - Mazatlan

The shadows from the palm trees in Machado Plaza sway on the textured wall of the balcony above
Pedro y Lola Restaurant during the reverie of Carnival in Mazatlan, Mexico.

 “Sharpness is a bourgeois concept.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson

This is one of the first photos that caught my eye when I looked through my photos after a trip to Mazatlan, Mexico for Carnival earlier this year.  I liked the tonality of the image and the composition.
I felt it conveyed a sense of what the Machedo Plaza looked and felt like during my time there.

The photo was shot hand-held at night. It is not tack sharp but in this case I felt the slight softness created by the "too-long-for hand-held" exposure time helped create a desirable quality in the photo.  It added to a painterly quality that the shadows of the moving palm trees created as I observed the scene.

I have always liked the Cartier-Bresson quote "Sharpness is bourgeois concept" and it certainly jumped into my head as I prepared this photo for publication.

Now don't get me wrong, I like a razor sharp image as much as the next guy.  I spent the better part of my career as a commercial photographer creating images full of detail and sharpness with perfectly smooth surfaces.  Yet, there has always been a part of me that loved to drag the shutter, capture movement in my subjects, blur the sharpness and create impressions rather than present precise detail.  I like to violate the sanctity of the smooth, shiny, reflective surfaces of perfectly printed photographs. When I print this photo it calls out for a textured surface to enhance the textures of the wall and the shadows.

“It is an illusion that photos are made with the camera, they are made with the eye, heart & head.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson

A photo like this one is more about projecting the impression of the event than it is about documenting the experience.  I find that often, a small area of the overall scene often does a better job of expressing the feeling of being there than an over-reaching photo of the entirety of the scene.  A small detail of the overall setting can stand in stead for the whole scene and give the viewer keener sense of what being there was like.

“Great photography is about depth of feeling, not depth of field.” – Peter Adams

Do you feel that only photos that are tack sharp are worthy of publication?  Do you have images, though they are less than perfectly sharp, convey the feeling you intended to express?  Do you agree with Cartier-Bresson's sharpness quote? What about Cartier-Bresson's quote about how photos are made?  Please share your thoughts below in the comments, I'd like to know what you think?

Contact me at @JeromeShaw  or Facebook 

copyright Jerome Shaw 2013 / www.jeromeshaw.com

My travels to Mazatlan were sponsored by Mexico Tourism, GoMazatlan and Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide

Palacio de Bellas Artes - Mexico City

The Beaux Arts exterior of the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City.
The building  houses an art museum, a performing arts theatre and opera house

Palacio de Bellas Artes - Mexico City

Mexico City has some of the finest and oldest architecture in North America.  Mexico City and the surrounding environs were thriving cities in the Mayan, Toltec and Aztec periods well before the Spanish Conquistadores arrived.  While Jamestown, Virginia was a foundering (1607) colony of lean-tos, Mexico City was a bustling Spanish settlement, decades old, with solid stone buildings and a Cathedral unrivaled in the Americas.

The Palacio de Bellas Artes (pictured above), is a neo-classical white marble structure that sits across from the Alameda and adjacent to Bellas Artes Metro Station in central Mexico City. It serves as an art museum and hosts performance arts. It is the premier opera house of Mexico City and known visually for the extravagant Beaux Arts exterior, which was created from imported Italian Carrara white marble. Palacio de Bellas Artes is the home of several murals. Most notably those of Diego Rivera, Rufino Tamayo, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and José Clemente Orozco.

The building of The Teatro Nacional, as it was then known, began on October 1, 1904. Designed by Italian architect Adamo Boari, it was originally scheduled to be completed by 1908. The project had several construction delays, many prompted by subsidence in Mexico City's notoriously poor soil. President Porfirio Díaz sited the theatre near the then financial district. It is located on the Northeast corner of the Alemeda promenade. The mass of the building is so great that it has been settling a few inches each year into the muddy earth of Mexico City.

The building was also delayed by many events among them the 1910 Mexican Revolution & Boari’s departure from Mexico in 1916, which virtually halted construction until 1932. Work resumed under the direction of Mexican architect Federico Mariscal and main building was completed in 1934. The final configuration of the square with gardens and Pegasus statues, designed by Boari, was not completed until 1994.

I had a wonderful evening wandering around the Alameda and through the streets of central Mexico City photographing.  A light shower might have dampened theater goers but it aided my exterior photo of the Palacio de Bellas Artes amplifying the reflections of the lights in the wet cobblestone pavement.

The best time to do cityscape "night" photos is at dusk, 30-60 minutes after sunset, while there is still light in the sky and after the building and city lights have come on.  This time period yields a more pleasing blue/black night sky than when you shoot cityscapes when it is full dark.  The building standout much more prominently than when you have the full black night sky.

Photography and text copyright Jerome Shaw 2007-2013 / www.jeromeshaw.com

Contact me at @JeromeShaw  or Facebook 

Jerome has also wriitten articles and columns for Confluence-Denver, Examiner, Johnny Jet, Bolder Planet, Recommend Magazine and Encompass Magazine