Background Info:

Ralph Eugene Meatyard was born in Normal, Illinois and raised in the nearby town of Bloomington, Illinois. Meatyard purchased his first camera in 1950 to photograph his newborn first child, and worked primarily with a Rolleiflex medium-format camera ever afterwards. He eventually found his way to the Lexington Camera club in 1954, and at the same time joined the Photographic Society of America. It was at the Lexington Camera Club that Meatyard met Van Daren Coke, an early influence behind much of his work. During the mid-1950s, Meatyard attended a series of summer workshops run by Henry Holmes Smith at Indiana University and also with Minor White. White, in particular, fostered Meatyard’s interest in Zen Philosophy.

here is one of the Zen twig series. Meatyard has only focused on the twig and has blurred out the background and has only picked up the detail from the twig and leaf. He has properly used manual focus to creative the blur and also he has done the picture in black and white I think that this enhances this as he has got the balance of contrast and brightness.

here is an example of my response to his work: