The project is developed through direct, consensual encounters. Photographs are made only after verbal permission is given, and after the aims and potential contexts of the work are clearly explained. Participation is acknowledged through transparent forms of compensation, such as food, drink, or a financial contribution, offered in recognition of time and involvement.
Out of Focus is a photographic series that examines how attention is structured within everyday urban space. The project developed from prolonged exposure to homelessness in Berlin as part of everyday movement through the city. Over time, what initially registered as interruptive became increasingly familiar. The work investigates how repeated exposure to certain forms of presence causes perception to be reshaped through habit, speed, and familiarity. In doing so, the project treats attention not as a neutral process, but as a conditioned system shaped by urban rhythms and social visibility.
The image series consists of six images made in Berlin. Each photograph depicts an unhoused individual positioned within everyday urban environments such as streets, transport nodes, and transitional zones. The subjects remain still and sharply rendered, while the surrounding city appears in motion through blurred passers-by. This visual strategy reverses conventional hierarchies of visibility: isolating what is typically overlooked while dissolving the surrounding city into indistinct motion.
Within my practice, Out of Focus extends an interest in how representational systems reshape perception by abstracting lived experiences. By using photographic mediation to interrupt habitual modes of seeing, attention itself becomes the object of scrutiny, positioning the viewer to reflect on how it takes shape within everyday urban environments.
