i have the kind of shot you are talking about. but, what i felt is that if i blur the foreground and focus on the background, the person is urged to watch the photograph till the end. had i focused on the foreground, i think the depth would have been absent.
thanks for the comment btw. will keep in mind.

what are stripes basically? repititve patterns of some definite shapes. i see them!

Thank you for your observations and comments. The contest caption did show a spider web and I had just taken this one. The spider is very small and its web is attached to the small rose. I did not want to destroy the rose nor the web as I walked thru the garden in the early morning light. I thought the lines looked enough like stripes at the time but should you have thought otherwise I would have enjoyed the image regardless. Thanks again.