Creating Art out of Motion

Expressing motion by blurring moving subjects in still photographs is a technique everyone is familiar with. I want to revisit this creative idea and share with you the camera settings I use and my own approach. As much as I love tack sharp images, there is a place for this kind of artistic interpretation of motion.

There are two ways to photograph moving subjects to create blurs. You can pan with the subjects as I did with the roseate spoonbills, below, and the 1950’s Buick convertible captured in Cuba on the next page. Or, you can mount the camera on a tripod and let the subject blur as it moves while the background remains sharp. That’s what I did in photographing the Canada lynx at the bottom of the next page.

Both techniques entail using slow shutter speeds. The question is, how slow should the shutter be to create an artistic image? The answer takes a little bit of thought. The factors that come into play are:

1. How much abstraction do you want for the subject?

2. What focal length lens are you using?

3. How fast is the subject moving?

4. How much definition in the background do you want?

Subject abstraction

If the shutter speed is too slow, the moving subject will lose all definition. You’ll end up with a complete blur of color and probably not enough form to identify the subject. If your goal is to simply create a color abstraction, shoot with a shutter speed of one second or more and move the camera significantly. That’s what I did with a night scene of Bourbon Street in New Orleans shown at the top of the next page. Note that even though the traffic and neon signs were completely abstracted, it’s still important to focus on them.

The selection of shutter speed for images that show definition in the subjects like the roseate spoonbills on the previous page and the old Buick, above, is essentially trial and error. You

probably won’t know what you like until you see it. For the birds on page 4, I used a shutter speed of 1/8th of a second. The Chevy was driving about 35 miles an hour and I chose a shutter of .3 seconds. The cyclists below were captured at 1/6th of a second.

How did I come up with these speeds? Again, it was simply trial and error. I did a few test shots, examined the LCD screen, and adjusted the settings as necessary to produce the type of abstraction I wanted.

With panning shots in which the shutter is depressed as you’re following the movement, long shutter speeds mean the elements in the background blur much more than the subject. That’s exactly what you want; the subject is more defined than the abstract backdrop.

Focal length of the lens

Movement is magnified in telephoto lenses, whereas it is minimized in a wide angle. Imagine watching the cyclists through a 14mm lens. They would seem to be moving slowly across the frame. The same group seen through a 400mm lens, assuming the riders were fairly close to you, would appear to be flying by.

China Photo Tour

January 26 to February 8, 2023

An entire city constructed of ice, Harbin, China

Rainbow Mountains, Zhangye Danxia Landform Geological Park China

This is why the focal length of the lens you’re using is relevent. To express the same degree of movement with a wide angle lens requires a longer exposure. For example, a 1/2 second exposure may be required with a 24mm lens to show the same degree of motion blur as compared to an 1/8th of a second when shooting with a 200mm focal length. Again, trial and error is the key. You won’t be able to envision the type of abstraction you’ll capture until you do a few test shots and then ascertain which shutter works best for you.

The subject’s speed

The speed of the various subjects you’ll want to photograph will be quite diverse. A bird in flight versus a jogger, for example, or basketball action versus galloping horses will challenge your decision making regarding shutter speed. Even within a particular subject matter, like birds, there are significant differences in their velocity and their body movement. A hummingbird typically flaps its wings about 90 times per second, while doves, jays, and robins flap at about 2.5 times per second. Eagles and hawks are much slower, and birds like vultures mostly soar.

For fast moving subjects like galloping horses, birds in flight, and athletes, I use shutter speeds between 1/4 and 1/30th of a second depending on how much abstraction I want and what lens I’m using. The picture below I took during my White Horses of the Camargue photo tour in France was abstracted at 1/15th of a second. Assuming it’s possible to have the horses and rider gallop past the camera for a second or third time (or more), the first pass provides test shots. Your shutter speed choice has to be an

educated guess. If there is too much blur for your taste, make the shutter speed a bit faster. In this case, you could elect to go from 1/15th to 1/30th, for example.

The horse and rider, above, was taken in an indoor rodeo event. My shutter was .4 seconds as I panned with the action.

Blurs and lighting

Definition in the background

Most of the pictures in this article show blurred subjects against backgrounds that are abstracted more than the subjects. If you want a sharp background with the subject blurred, you need to make the shot from a tripod. The firm support insures the background will be sharp even with slow shutter speeds. That’s what I did with the picture of the lynx on page 5. This is a 1/30th of a second exposure. Similarly, I photographed the car driving past a rundown colonial-era building in Havana, Cuba, set at 1/20th of a second.

Using long exposures means you either have to avoid bright light conditions like midday under a clear sky or use neutral density filters. You also have to lower the ISO and close the lens down to reduce the amount of light reaching the sensor to compensate for the long exposures. §