>>3459845>I assure you that even at the time those photographers would have quite preferred sharper lenses, but the technology simply didn't exist.Yeah this is where you're absolutely wrong.
It's just that after some point in the late '30s and early '40s,the aesthetic of the "Group f/64" started becoming more popular than the pictorialist aesthetic that dominated before.
From the group's manifesto:
>The members of Group f/64 believe that photography, as an art form, must develop along lines defined by the actualities and limitations of the photographic medium, and must always remain independent of ideological conventions of art and aesthetics that are reminiscent of a period and culture antedating the growth of the medium itself.This is in stark contrast to pictorialism that was more popular earlier on:
> Typically, a pictorial photograph appears to lack a sharp focus (some more so than others), is printed in one or more colors other than black-and-white (ranging from warm brown to deep blue) and may have visible brush strokes or other manipulation of the surface. For the pictorialist, a photograph, like a painting, drawing or engraving, was a way of projecting an emotional intent into the viewer's realm of imagination.So no, soft focus was not a limitation of lens design. Many photographers in the '40s were well alive and active earlier in the '20s when pictorialism was dominant, and they kept some of its elements like soft focus and diffusion, airbrushing, etc. in their later work.
Of course any argument that soft focus was always a limitation and not a feature, is put to the ground straight away by soft focus lenses that were designed and marketed this way.
You only think that sharpness has always been the goal, because pictorialism has fallen hugely out of fashion and is almost extinct today.
