>>4162186Soft focus and out of focus are completely different things. If you do an image search for Olan Mills it's completely hit or miss which photos are in focus and which ones aren't.
I think he just didn't care enough to twist the focus ring with any level of accuracy. People were used to blurry photos, since they only had fixed focus Kodak Instamatic cameras, or themselves didn't have the skill and determination for manual focus. That wouldn't fly today when everyone's phones have face detect autofocus.
