Let’s start with the obvious: I like sharp photos. I’m not allergic to craft. I’m not campaigning for blur. I miss the shot in between, which is what happens.

I’ve been doing photography long enough to notice something mildly annoying: Some of my best street photos are slightly out of focus. Maybe I find they are the best because I didn’t nail them completely, or it is just more annoying when it’s a promising shot I failed slightly.
Remember, there is no such thing as a 100% success. Photography is built on making sometimes very fast decisions, and that leads to failures along the way. It’s the core nature of street and reportage photography.

If you then, as I do, often shoot with the lens wide open to achieve a narrow depth of field, focus is even riskier. The stakes for missing an accurate focus are much higher than when shooting at f8, for example. But that’s the style I prefer, because it’s great when I nail it, and I live with the small mistakes.

If there is enough time to frame and set the focus accurately, there of course, better success rates than when I am on the move.

I am focused on focusing on this article. Not the soft look that makes it look like you smeared butter on the front element. Just… not perfect. A little off. Enough that the internet would zoom in, sigh loudly, and declare the image “unusable.”

And yet some of these photos still work.

So yes, here’s the line I sometimes use,  adapted partly as a joke and partly because it pokes the right nerve:

“Focus is a bourgeois concept.” 

People often paraphrase “focus is a bourgeois concept,” but Henri Cartier Bresson, who was the one who said a punchline as a comment, was specifically talking about sharpness/clarity (and by extension the status-anxiety that can come with technical perfection).

Meaning: the obsession with perfect focus or sharpness is often less about photographs and more about respectability. A way to prove you were in control. A way to make the picture behave. Street photography rarely behaves.

A quick note on the quote (before someone corrects me in the comments)

The Leica M teaches you this early (whether you like it or not)

On a Leica M, you’re not outsourcing the whole situation to a focus algorithm. You’re present. You’re judging distance. You’re making choices in real time.

That also means you miss focus.

You miss focus because:

• people move (rude, but true)
• you move (also rude, but unavoidable)
• you focus and recompose, and the plane shifts
• you shoot wide open, and depth of field becomes a thin political compromise
• the moment happens faster than your certainty
• you’re doing everything “right”, and the world still refuses to cooperate

This doesn’t mean manual focus is bad. It means street photography is not a studio.

Photo by Ferenc Laterveer on the Paris Workshop showing Morten with the Leica M9. Notice that this shot is both sharp and in focus.

Autofocus misses too (it just misses with confidence)

Modern autofocus is brilliant. Also, it’s still guessing.

It guesses wrong when:

• it locks onto contrast instead of intention
• face/eye detection chooses the wrong person in a layered scene
• backlight or low contrast turns the camera into a polite optimist
• tracking jumps to a hand, a shoulder, a sign, anything with stronger contrast than your actual subject
• you nailed focus, and then the subject moved during the exposure

So “out of focus” is not a Leica thing or a Sony thing or a whatever thing.

It’s a photography thing.

Which is another way of saying: normal.

What I mean by “focus is a bourgeois concept”

I don’t mean focus doesn’t matter.

I mean, perfect focus has become a moral standard. A little purity test.

If it isn’t tack sharp at 100%, it doesn’t count.
If it’s soft, it’s amateur.
If the eyelashes aren’t individually resolved, the photo is “bad.”

That mindset is convenient because sharpness is measurable. Meaning isn’t.

Street photography is built on things you can’t measure easily:

• timing
• tension
• coincidence
• gesture
• mood
• presence
• the feeling that something real happened in front of you

Sharpness is a tool. A good one. But it is not the subject.

Why your best street photos might be slightly out of focus

1) Because the moment is not repeatable

You can’t reshoot a glance. You can’t ask the street to do it again, but with better light and more cooperative body language.

If the picture contains something rare — a relationship between people, a strange alignment, an honest expression — slight softness is sometimes just the price of admission. As is something not framed perfectly, because it might be a situation happening fast.

Paris. There was time enough to set the focus accurately on the dog and create the wanted effect with a narrow DOF (Depth Of Field).
Leica M9, Summilux 50mm f1.4 ASPH

2) Because photographs are not usually experienced at 100% zoom

We all zoom in. Then we get sad. Then we delete.

But most photos are seen:

• on phones
• in books
• as prints
• at normal viewing distance
• in a quick scroll before someone decides to stop and look

If the photo reads strongly at real-world size, it’s probably fine. Many famous photos are either slightly motion blurred, not tack sharp and even a bit out of focus.

If the story is strong enough, the picture is too.

3) Because softness can support mood

A bit of softness can reduce the clinical “digital hardness” and let the atmosphere carry the image. Sometimes sharpness is noisy. Softness can be quiet.

Not always. But often enough to deserve a fair trial.

4) Because the street is not about proving technical virtue

Street photography isn’t a performance review for your equipment or your discipline. It’s a picture of life.

And life is not always perfectly in focus.

Why I don’t delete slightly out-of-focus photos

I’m not keeping everything. I’m not romanticising mistakes. I’m simply refusing to let one technical variable override everything else.

I keep a slightly soft frame when:

• the gesture is strong
• the composition holds together
• the light is doing something interesting
• there’s tension, humour, or a small human truth
• the image feels alive at normal viewing size
• there’s an “anchor” somewhere (a hand, an edge, a silhouette, a highlight), even if it’s not the eye

I let it go when:

• nothing gives the viewer a place to land
• the softness adds nothing, and the moment isn’t special
• I have a sharper frame with the same emotional content
• the photo doesn’t hold attention even before I zoom in

Also: deleting too fast is often just editing with fear.

Fear of being judged.
Fear of looking unprofessional.
Fear that a photo must be technically flawless to be allowed to exist.

I’d rather edit with taste than with anxiety. Wait and check it again before pressing the delete button, and only when completely convinced, delete it if you need to.

Practical editing: a quick “keep / crop / treat / let go” method

When I edit street work, I try this:

1. First pass: small view only
   No zooming. Thumbnails or fit-to-screen.
   Flag anything that hits you immediately.
2. Second pass: look for an anchor
   Zoom only enough to answer:
   Is there something the viewer can grab onto?
3. Third pass: choose a direction
   If the photo has life but softness weakens it, decide intentionally:

• Crop tighter to strengthen what’s working
• Lean into tone (contrast, midtones) to emphasise shape and light
• Convert with intention (not as a cliché rescue): do it when the photo is more about mood and structure than color detail
• Keep as-is if the softness is part of the atmosphere

The goal is not to “fix” the photo. The goal is to clarify what the photo is about.

Leica M Sidebar: Three things I actually do (and why)

1) Zone focusing as a creative choice (not a compromise)

Zone focusing isn’t just “because I can’t focus fast enough.” It’s a way of shooting that prioritises timing and flow.

What it gives you:

• speed (no hesitation)
• consistency (you know your working distance)
• freedom to watch the scene instead of the focus patch
• a calmer relationship with the moment

How I use it in practice:

• I decide on a working distance (often around 1.5–3m, depending on the street and lens)
• I set an aperture that gives me a useful depth-of-field zone
• I treat that zone like a stage: I wait for people to enter it

It’s not “spray and pray.” It’s “place and wait.”

And yes, you’ll still miss sometimes — because people don’t respect your zone. But overall, it increases hit rate where it matters: the moment.

2) Why f/8 “discipline” isn’t the only answer

There’s a certain street-photo religion that goes:
“f/8 and be there.”

It’s a good mantra. It’s also not a law of physics.

Sometimes f/8 is perfect. Sometimes it’s the wrong tool.

Why f/8 isn’t always ideal:

• In low light, f/8 pushes ISO or shutter into ugly territory
• Sometimes you want separation — not because “bokeh,” but because the background is chaos
• Sometimes the mood of the scene benefits from shallower depth and softer context
• Sometimes you’re close, and even at f/8, the depth-of-field is not as forgiving as people pretend

The real “discipline” isn’t f/8. Its intention.

Ask: What is the photo about?
If it’s about layers and context, stop down.
If it’s about one person in a storm of distractions, open up — and accept that the focus margin gets stricter.

You can be disciplined at f/2. You just have to be honest about the trade.

3) Softness in prints vs online: what I use as a rule of thumb

This is where people get confused, because the same photo can look “soft” on a phone and absolutely fine in a print — or the other way around.

A practical way to decide:

Online (phones, Instagram, YouTube thumbnails)

• Small screens hide fine detail issues
• Compression can add its own mush
• People glance quickly

So for online, I’m often more forgiving if:

• the photo reads clearly at screen size
• the “anchor” is there
• the feeling lands immediately

Prints (books, exhibitions, portfolios)

• People stand still and look longer
• Prints reveal different kinds of softness (especially in edges and transitions)
• Viewing distance matters a lot

For prints, my rule is:

• If the photo is meant to be looked at closely, it needs a stronger anchor.
• If it’s meant to be felt from a normal distance (bigger print, more atmosphere), slight softness can be completely fine — even beneficial.

A simple test:

• View the image at roughly the size it will be printed (on screen), step back to the expected viewing distance, and ask:
  “Does it hold?”
  If yes, it’s fine. If you only notice softness when you go hunting for it, it’s usually not the point.

And if the photo is truly good, the viewer will forgive a lot anyway. People forgive technical imperfections. They don’t forgive boredom.

Calm down and keep the good ones

I’m not arguing for blur. I’m arguing against automatic deletion.

Sometimes the best street photo is not the sharpest one.
Sometimes it’s the one with the best timing, the best tension, the best human moment — and it happens to be slightly soft because you are a person, not a machine.

So I keep those photos.
Not proudly. Just practically.

Because the street doesn’t care about your focus point.
And honestly, neither should you — not more than you care about the picture itself.