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Photographers… ridiculed their colleagues who produced out of focus pictures by calling their style the "Fuzzy Wuzzy School."

Photographer Alfred Stieglitz subscribed to a theory that the principal subject of a photo should be in sharp focus while secondary elements should be left out of focus. The theory was called “naturalism” because it was thought that these types of photographs most closely resembled the way the human eye naturally sees things, focusing on one area while surrounding details fall away. In Spring Showers, New York, Stieglitz let the weather keep the photo’s background slightly out of focus, then added to the effect when he printed the negative by keeping the area in low contrast and evenly toned.

Controlled soft-focus effects like those in this picture are not to be confused with out of focus photographs. If this picture were out of focus the tree in the foreground would lack its sharp definition. It is just that definition, balanced with the soft gray in the background, that gives this photo its delicate feeling. Photographers at the turn of the century ridiculed their colleagues who produced out of focus pictures by calling their style the “Fuzzy Wuzzy School.”

The sanitation worker in the left side of the picture is not the subject; he provides “visual weight.” Without him, the off-center and slightly tilting tree combined with the curb’s diagonal line to the right would throw the picture out of balance.

 
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Minneapolis Institute of Arts