Uta Barth | Field #23 | The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation

This is a photograph taken by the photographer Uta Barth, who uses the focus of the camera lens to create these soft, blurry images. Some of the things she might have been trying to capture in this particular photo could have been the way the different colors create interesting shapes and forms in the photograph. The dark shape on the left side balances the large brown shape on the right, balancing the composition, and the warm colors – especially the splash of orange near the top of the photo – also add to the element of cohesiveness in the image. The range of different warm colors and values makes this image very satisfying to look at, and although the viewer cannot clearly see the subject of the photo, it still radiates a feeling of warmth. This is why if I were to name the photo, I would choose a name somewhere along the lines of “Warmth” or “A Warm Feeling”, as it conveys the way I feel when looking at the photograph without taking away the element of the charming mystique from the blurry image. Uta Barth uses several techniques when taking this photo: the diagonal lines radiating from the center of the composition guide the viewer’s eyes around the image, and the different values create positive and negative spaces despite the unclarity of the image. The use of focus in this photograph also creates a soft, almost fuzzy quality to the image, prompting the viewer to focus more on the general shapes and colors of the photo instead of any concrete, sharp detail – which makes the scene all the more extraordinary.