I am a student of photography, my current assignment is a blur action photo, and I am having a horrible time coming up with an idea. Sure I have taken some mediocre blur actions, but none are satisfying me. I would realy appreciate a response on a rather neat blur action or techniqe to use. Thank you for your time.

-- Clipper (strkcdub@camalott.com), October 08, 1997

Answers

"Blur action" sounds quite prescriptive. The two obvious approaches are to put the camera on a tripod and shoot something moving, or to pan with the moving object. Objects could include car, people, cyclists, airplanes, etc.

Here's a daft idea. Put on a very wide lens (15mm would be great), and walk or run with the camera pointing at your own feet.

-- Alan Gibson (Gibson.AL@mail.dec.com), October 09, 1997.

Blur action photo ideas

I had great fun a while back photographing some kids jumping on a trampoline. Some of the images are great! I hand held and shot 1/15 to 1 sec exposures. The 1/15 - 1/8 sec gave nice blur with very recognizable subjects (the kids were doing flips, twirls, belly-flops, etc.). The 1/2 - 1 sec exposures became much more surreal, with a blur on the photo but not always recognizable as a person because they moved through the frame so fast. If you pick fast-moving subjects like this (jumping on tramp, diving into a pool...), you'll probably want to focus on the spot the person *will be* during the most interesting part of the action and then click the shutter as they enter the field of view. Other ideas - ballet dancers jumping, ordinary people dancing (street fair, bar...), sporting events, dogs running/jumping/fetching, etc. For these slower actions, the longer exposures (1/4 - 1 sec) will likely give you blur with still recognizable subjects. You'll have to experiment with shutter speed compared to amount of blur till you're satisfied. Another odd phenomenon you can record is cars driving by at night using a tripod. Since your exposures must be long, typically at least 1+ sec wide open (depending on how dark, etc.), your film will record their headlights but not usually the car itself since it's moving and is too dark to make an impression that quickly. It can make for some surreal (or boring) images depending on what you do, how many cars, how long an exposure, etc.

Good luck!

-- Cindy Stokes (cstokes@creative.net), October 09, 1997.

Blur ideas

Another idea might be to go to a park where kids are swinging. Use slow film and stop it down so that it requires a long exposure, say 1-2 seconds, which will also give you a good depth of field. Put it on a tripod and shoot. It might be fun to also try this but at the end of a swing pop a flash to freeze just that moment with the blur behind. Another might be a waterfall using the same technique but no flash. How about water coming out of a faucet onto a black plate? I think the use of a tripod might be important to show blur of just one object while keeping everything else sharp.

-- Chuck Baker (cbaker@skypub.com), October 09, 1997.

Which reminds me of some succesful shots I did once, of fireworks -- rockets and the like -- handheld, on B setting for quite a few seconds, moving the camera to follow the fireworks, sometime twisting the camera, and sometimes firing a flash during the exposure to capture the people looking up at the fireworks. I used a rangefinder, so I could see the fireworks through the viewfinder when the shutter was open.

-- Alan Gibson (gibson.al@mail.dec.com), October 11, 1997.

Some recent ideas I have tried .....as I type this I am looking at an 11x14 of a bride I shot at 1/15 sec.while she was twirling in her dress. I also set a studio strobe (flash on camera would work as well) to go off during the exposure. I fired as she came around and her face was toward camera. She got a little dizzy but it was a lot of fun and we got quite a number of different "looks". I bracketed my exposure between 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, and 1 sec. The results were different amounts of blur in her dress with generally sharp face. I would use a tripod for this effect.... I also recently shot a firetruck coming out of its station. I was standing in their drive shooting a building across the street when I heard the alarm. I shot at 1/15 sec handheld. I held the camera very still (did not pan with the truck as it exited) and of course the truck blurred resulting in a print that said "urgent". This was shot with a 20mm lens on 35mm camera at close range so there was also some perspective convergence in the shot which I thought added to the image..... good luck!

-- Rick Stiles (rstiles@ghg.net), October 11, 1997.

Blurring means not only the subject be moving, but you can be as well. Get someone to drive a car or truck while you shoot pictures of objects either stationary or moving while you are moving. Stationary objects seem to spin, While moving objects (depending on their direction) seem to freeze while the background blurs.

Imagine.

-- Kevin Paul (kpm927@aol.com), October 30, 1997.