Intentional camera movement, or ICM, is very popular right now. The basic idea is you shake your camera to add blur to your images, and the results can be amazing. I love some of my fall abstract ICM images, the images have a painterly appearance I really like. But what about other ways of creating blurry photos? Rather than shake (ICM) your camera, how about slow shutter speed panning images tracking moving subjects?
Pan and blurs, or following your subject and shooting at slow speeds around 1/4-1/30, can also result in beautiful photographs. The trick is finding the right shutter speed, focal length and panning motion to create a striking photograph.
We get questions on almost every workshop about what makes a good blurry photo using one of the techniques above. I always find it ironic that we spend thousands of dollars on equipment to get sharp photos, and what do we do? Shake the camera and make blurry photos!
Evaluating blurry images is subjective, but there are some principles to consider. Here is what I consider when trying to create blurry photos that are successful.
Pan and blur. Generally speaking, successful pan and blur images have a sharp element that anchors the viewer’s eye, juxtaposed on a background that is blurry. Take a look at this sled dog image. The dog’s eye and face is sharp, anchoring the image, surrounded by the blur of moving sled dogs against the background. A lot of the success of pan and blur is the tension create by having a sharp element surrounded by blurry elements.
What happens if the subject and the background are both blurry? This might work as an abstract. The trouble arises when your subject is a little blurry, almost like it was meant to be sharp but you chose the wrong shutter speed. Take a look at the guanaco image above. The animal is almost sharp in the middle of the body, but the face is blurry (people look at animal’s eyes first). A better image would have a tack sharp head and eyes.
But then look at this crane shot. This image was taken at 1/4 second, so everything is very soft and blurry, the elements are more in harmony. Better still, the soft purple tones work well with the soft lines and gentle nature of the image. So in this case everything being blurry can work.
If you want to get better results shooting pan and blurs, use a tripod. Tripods allow us to move our lenses more steadily, eliminating unwanted up and down motion while panning side to side with a subject.
ICMs. Similar principles apply here. If you are going to shake your camera and make an abstract, make sure you shake it enough that your audience will know the image is meant to be blurry. But on the other hand, don’t shake your camera too much if you want the viewer to recognize the subject.
Here is the boat wake from our ship in Antarctica. All elements are blurry creating an interesting abstract of a unlikely subject that we saw every day on the ship.
Take a look at this bayou photo above. Not enough blur so this image just looks like….a blurry photo.
But take a look at this image. This bayou shot has more controlled vertical motion resulting in a nice painterly look. I sometimes take hundreds of images to get one blurry photo that works. Experiment with technique. How about shaking the camera while zooming in or out during a long exposure? Or how about multiple exposure ICM images? Experimenting is half the fun, and critical to expanding your creativity.
