Sharpness

Like many things in life, sharpness can be a blessing in disguise.

Why obsess about it?  What does it bring with?  Are the great photos in the world all that sharp? 

  

And, conversely, what's with the opposite of sharp?  What does it say?  What can it suggest? 

Long before plunging into digital photography, one very good photographer with years of excellent work explained to me his reason to drop film and buy a Nikon D200 this way: "No grain."   I was still thinking about the amazing sharpness of my Leicas and some of my Nikons (especially the AF ED 80-200 I have), and decided that if grain was a problem, sharpness was overrated.

Above are some old images, made with my Nikon F5 and my AF-S 24-120 VR on Kodak tungsten film ISO 160, in December 2007, in Chicago, in the midst of a hellish winter.  These images show (gasp!) grain.  In fact, the grain here is just gorgeous... and makes me wonder about the reasons, the legitimate reasons why I fell in love with sharpness. 

And now, one that stands out, at least to me:

In this photograph of the Dearborn Bridge in Chicago, there was a lot of grain in the lower right corner before I tinkered with it. While I was initially annoyed about it, suddently I realized that this precise aspect drew me to certain images: grain, like the painter's strokes, is not a problem here, not something to eschew, but the artist's "signature", the proof that we're not looking at nature itself, but at something that represents a particular subjectivity. 

Pretty nice, huh?  Grain, as opposed to what others term "coldness" or "impure perfection", separates two different media.  Digital gives us a perfect image, but film is still a personal choice.  Since this film has a slow ISO (just 160), what would the photos be like with, say, a typical B&W ISO 400?  Grain galore...  Does it mean "imperfection" or is it just an interpretive view?

What do you think now?