Focus

Yesterday at the Gateway Gallery I had a good conversation with fellow Art League Photographer Herb Ellis. Herb recently won first place in the Photography category for the Art League Spring Art Show at Gateway College. Herb, a retired attorney, shoots,develops and prints his own film.
We were discussing the teaching of photography and the difficulty. He said that he tried to convey to the group the three basics, shutter, aperture and focus. Upon later reflecting on what Herb said, I had to somewhat disagree on the third aspect, focus. I would add ISO(International Organizational for Standardization) or the old term ASA. ISO has more of a bearing upon the exposure of a photograph than focus. Focus is subjective. Shutter, f/stop and ISO are objective ratios. ISO is one of the few things one can set on modern day point and shoot cameras. You cannot always adjust shutter,aperture or even focus.
Herb I found places emphasis upon focus. I do not. Last year we were both asked to judge a Woman's club art show along with Art teacher Danny Owens. All three of us went through each category individually and determined our first,second and third selections. We then compared notes. In most of the categories, Danny and I were relatively close. Herb diverged greatly from our choices. One choice in particular he did not care for was an out of focus scene. He said it was a bad photograph because it was out of focus. His choice was an in focus arrangement of flowers, because he said, he likes to grow those particular flowers and knows how difficult it is. In politicking for my choice, I said, I do not care that the photograph is out of focus, it spoke to me via the composition and the emotion it conveyed, despite not being technically correct. Neither Danny nor I cared for the floral arrangement interestingly.  We all finally came to a compromise and I trust the Woman's Club ladies were pleased and Herb not too offended we did not vote the flowers first place.
So, if you are considering learning the basics of photography with a camera that does not do it all for you, concentrate on the shutter, how fast the or how slow the light enters onto the sensor or film, the aperture, or the iris, and how much light is let in or kept out, depending upon the size of the hole, or the ISO, the sensitivity of the film to the light, whether your setting is 80, the less light or 1600, the greater amount of light.
All ratios, all easily manipulated to your choosing, your creativity. And, when you learn these three, you can then choose to place your subject in focus or out of focus. But that is another subject, called depth of field, or depth of focus.
A squint, or small hole, greater the in focus. A druggie, with dilated, wide open eyes, less the in focus.