I was reading some online news today; I forget what I was reading at the time, but I came across a link to a website called 'Asian Poses'. And of course, it's about... poses Asian people -- mostly female Asian people -- assume when having their photos taken. Cute poses, cuter poses, and REALLY cute poses.
I'm not nicking any pictures from the website, but here's a sample of my own. In the photo below, which I took in Kyoto, Japan in the fall of 2007, the girl on the left is doing the most basic cute pose -- the 'Peace Sign'. Certainly, wishing for world peace is a laudable thing; what makes it a 'cute' activity, I don't know -- but there you are. I also remember taking a photo of a whole bunch of schoolgirls doing the same, but I couldn't find it. I assume I'll come across it at some time in the future when I least expect or need it. Not that a guy would ever actually 'need' a photo of a bunch of schoolgirls in uniform doing something cute for him.
Anyway, it inspired me to take these selfies. Because today was 'Dress Like A Mafioso Day' at work. And for once I wasn't posing in the bathroom mirror.
When I checked them out later at home, something odd caught my attention. Maybe I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, I don't know, but in the second photo it looks like the camera was shaken, or it fired twice, or anyway something happened, and as a result the objects in the background are blurred, or imaged twice. Just the background, though; not the main subject -- when the two photos are compared, it's fairly striking that the faces are equally in focus, yet the backgrounds differ sharply.
If the disturbance was caused by the camera swinging in an arc, but in situ -- without moving out of place -- naturally the parallactic displacement would be the most noticeable in the objects that are the farthest from the camera; the cuff of the sleeve would be more or less in focus, and as you moved down the arm you should see increasing separation. On the other hand, if the camera as a whole moved but maintained its angle, the entire photograph would be affected, with all details blurred equally. If the camera both moved out of place and swung around, the effect would be a combination of the two. In any case, my face should be blurred, either by the same amount as the objects on the desk, or less than they, but more than the forearm -- but no such effect is apparent (what looks like doubling of some locks of hair are actually shadows caused by the flash). I looked at fine features like the outlines of the eyes and the nose at high magnification, but they are just as sharp (in so far as is possible with my little point-and-shoot camera) as the stripes on the sleeve.
So what could account for this schizophrenic image? It's as if two separate photos were combined to make this one. A clean shot of the face, superimposed over a blurry one of the background.
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