Blur / Obscure / Distort: Photography and perception brings together a compelling selection of photographs that share a central goal: to disrupt the viewer’s sense of time, space, place, or scale. Whether through soft focus, visual confusion, or ambiguous framing, these images challenge how we interpret what we see. By removing or altering the clarity expected in photography, the works open new ways of engaging with the medium.

While blur, distortion, and obscurity are sometimes dismissed as technical flaws, they have long been employed as deliberate creative strategies. Since the 19th century, artists have explored these effects to deepen emotional resonance, suggest movement, or question photographic truth. The exhibition highlights examples from the Norton’s Collection alongside special loans, showing how these methods have been used across generations and genres.

In doing so, the exhibition reveals the constructed nature of visual perception and underscores photography’s inherent capacity for manipulation. Even when photography seems to depict reality, it is always shaped by choices—of lens, light, focus, and framing. Blur / Obscure / Distort invites viewers to consider how what is hidden or obscured may be just as powerful as what is clearly seen.