The Glass Blower, Whangarei

[Jim A]

The background ended up out of focus, but I think that helps the image. What do you think please?

[Manfred M]

Jim - I'd have to say this does not work. Most of the image looks soft and this overall softness is distracting.

It looks to me like the glass blower is soft as well.

[Geoff F]

As Manfred mentioned, everything is out of focus except possibly his ear. Did your camera focus on that with a wide open aperture and a slow shutter speed which seems to have also created a bit of motion blur on his legs? I can't get any shooting information from the exif data.

[DanK]

The left hand also looks roughly in focus, while the areas in between aren't, which suggests that some of what seems to be a focus problem may also be motion blur. I can't see the exif either.

[William W]

The background ended up out of focus, but I think that helps the image. What do you think please?

Maybe the background is out of Focus, but I think that key distraction is that there is Motion Blur - I think that is being confused with 'Out of Focus' and 'Soft'.

What was the Shutter Speed?

On preliminary interrogation it appears that the Camera was moving downward and to the left whilst the Shutter was open.

WW

[RBSinTo]

Aside from the issues already mentioned, there is too much background information that adds nothing to the story, and too little foreground information that does.
For me, the camera's point of view is not optimal to correcting this problem. Move to a better position to capture the glass blower performing more interesting aspects of his work, and try if possible to get in tighter.
RBSinTo