Ralph Eugene Meatyard was born on the 15th May 1925, in Illinois. At the age of eighteen he was forced to join the Navy, at the time of the Second World War. Lucky the war had ended before he was sent on an overseas assignment. Soon after the war he dedicated his studies into becoming an optician, but still continued with his passion for photography.

His photographic series ‘No Focus’ has combined his occupation with his hobby, showcasing what he was really passionate about. In this series the photographs are completely out of focus, reveling what it is like for blind people seeing the world. This powerful photographic series changed the way people captured photographs, as it went against the stereotypical techniques we would use to capture an image. His work within this series is very inspiring to photographers as it shows that experimentation with the camera is vital part of photography, and that breaking the stereotypes can actually result in effective images.

My main inspiration from his work was this composition from his ‘Zen Twigs’ series. I took a liking to this due to the fact that within the frame, only one thing is in focus with the background out of focus or ‘blurred’. Within my interpretations, I utilized this skill but used it focusing on objects in the foreground and the background.