Hey folks. Simple question to start us off. If I say “shutter speed” to you, what is the first thing you think of?

Answers of course vary, but the most popular answers relate to a) prevent camera shake and b) stop motion. Neither is wrong. but the challenge with commonality is that it is so darn common. As photography is a visual art form, let’s look at how we think about shutter speed informs us as to how we see things.

Meandering to Here

The other evening, I watched a movie. It was quite forgettable, in fact I do forget what movie it was. What I do remember was in the near endless roll of producers, movie companies and financiers that waste so much of my time, there was a little video for one of those things. No, I don’t remember which one. It was of a flickering old timey look movie of a man walking wearing a light summer suit and a straw boater. Think of Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. (the good version of Mary Poppins)

It wasn’t the man, it was that the video started as a still frame and then slowly put more frames in sequence like an old movie, or a flip book. If that term means nothing to you, take a moment and click this link to Wikipedia.

What we get from that flip book piece on Wikipedia is the ability to see motion when looking at a still image. For the purposes of this article, and a forthcoming assignment on the podcast, I am asking you to think about how you use shutter speed to document motion in a still photograph.

Shutter Speed Defines Motion

Have you ever made a photograph of a bird in flight? What about an aircraft? A skier racing downhill, a swimmer in a race, a car rally? What’s the first thing that we all think about?

Ooh subject in motion, moving quickly, must choose shortest shutter speed to freeze the action! Oh my camera only goes to 1/4000th of a second? Must buy new camera that goes to 1/8000th of a second.

Ok maybe you aren’t that last person, but I have certainly met both he and she. I get it. We have been trained that more sharpness and more detail is better. That’s why despite excellent functionality in our general editing software so many of us rush to spend more money on more sharpening tools, even AI driven tools that will attain self awareness and then use sharp implements to rid the world of annoying bags of mostly water. But I digress.

Here’s the (my) problem with all of those things. Everyone does them. The good ones are nice but they are also boring. A photograph of a car on a track does nothing it invoke the spirit of the incredible Jackie Stewart and his well known catchphrase (in Scots accent) “it’s great day for a motorcar race”

If I freeze everything, how do I know that the car is moving? How do I know that the jet aircraft is going incredibly fast? How do I know that it’s a bird in flight and not just a stuffed bird hanging from a wire? The Royal Ontario Museum’s birds room has hundreds of stuffed birds in flying poses hanging from thin wires and after I get past the look of the feathers, I nod my head and move on. There is nothing there to engage me.

Basically, frozen is boring. Sorry if I offend anyone, goodness knows I have made more than my share of frozen boring images.

When I started working with and photographing raptors, I worked for a compromise of sharp eyes and blurred wings. With propeller driven aircraft, including helicopters, I worked to have a sharp aircraft but enough prop blur that the props nearly vanished. With auto racing, I wanted the car sharp, but the wheel spin blurred and the background blurred. All achievable with practice and achieved. Not quite as boring, but still not giving me the rush of motion.

What I propose instead is to allow the subject to blur within the context of the unmoving environment. Consider photographing a waterfall or rapids. We use a tripod to allow for a long enough shutter speed so the water has time to move, creating motion blur while the background remains static. This works successfully so why don’t we do it for other things.

The Point

So let’s do that. Instead of working to freeze the action, let the action show motion. This is tough to do without practice, but proper practice is the mother of skill. Instead of freezing the bird, freeze the background such that you can see the bird flying across it. If an aircraft is doing a low pass as they tend to do at airshows or when taking off or landing, hold the background and let the plane move through the image. Hold the signage at the track and let the cars blur as they speed past. Or take your kids or grandkids out to the park with their bicycles and have them ride back and forth while you work on getting the right amount of motion blur so it is clear it’s a bike, but not what kind of bike or what gear it’s in, or even that you recognize the child. What we have done is documentary style work until now and while there is nothing wrong with that, if we never try different approaches we stagnate. So don’t shoot a documentary, work to establish motion with contextual placement. A racing car can have more motion blur than a bicycle. To do this well takes time and effort and failure. So get up and go do it.

Conclusion

You can expect an actual assignment along these lines coming up on the podcast that Gordon and I do together. Please subscribe to the articles and to the podcast so you get notified whenever new content is posted. Thanks very much for reading and until next time, peace