Can you believe it’s already October?! The seasons are changing, the calendar is full and we’ve been going full steam ahead since LAST October. (Or at least it feels that way….). And the other day, my son came home from school with his order forms for cap and gown and graduation announcements. Yikes! Where has the time gone?

In the spirit of things going past so quickly, I started a new project with my students focused on motion blur. If we can’t control how quickly time goes by in our lives, at least we can slow down the speed of our shutter.

We set the cameras to Shutter Priority mode, chose a shutter speed around 1/25 of a second, and played around with what happens when we move the camera intentionally as a photo is taken. The first kind of movement I wanted them to capture was radial blur. I asked them to imagine that they were holding the camera sort of like they would hold the steering wheel of a car. A quick jerk on the wheel gives the passenger a jolt, but the driver is never really out of control. The same is true for the camera. A quick spin (not an entire rotation) gives the radial effect while still allowing the photographer some control over the focus and the outcome. It’s always fun to play along with my students, so here are a few examples I shot during the course of the day.

The next way we created blur on purpose was to use the zoom lens on our cameras while the photo was taking. We put the camera into burst mode so that as we held down the shutter button it took a series of consecutive pictures. It took quite a bit of trial and error and lots of throw-away images, but when they were able to capture the effect, it was profound. I enjoyed getting to hear them as captured something they loved.

Even though the time is flying by, we are trying to stay present for all of it as each day comes. I hope you are too. Feeling the blur~ Angie