This photography project was focused all around capturing motion. Easy, right? Well, that’s not quite the word I would use, but I did stretch and learn a lot over this weekend. My camera arrived in the mail later than expected, so I got a late start. But with the time I had, I did all that I could to learn how tailoring my shutter speed can capture motion in such interesting ways.

freeze motion

I don’t know what it is, but I’m always mesmerized by photos that capture pouring. There was a lot of natural light available for this photo, so I was able to use a faster shutter speed without raising the ISO. By using such a fast shutter speed, I was able to capture a lot of detail in the sugar. I applied minor edits to the highlights and shadows within Adobe Bridge to make the sugar stand out even more.

I wanted to capture somebody in motion, and my roommate was all too happy to jump around. We started later than planned, so I adjusted the ISO accordingly to compensate for the lowering light. I took a continuous stream of photos using high shutter speed, and I was able to get this fantastic shot of her mid-jump. The aperture was lower in order to capture as much light as possible. I played with the lighting and contrast in Adobe Bridge in order to make it pop.

blur motion

Instead of capturing something frozen in action, the goal of these blurred images is to show motion by using slow shutter speed. Slower shutter speed means the shutter is open for longer and captures whatever the lens sees during that span. The above photo was taken at a 0.3-second shutter speed, capturing the blur of the spinning chair that Teddy was sitting on. I adjusted the colors in Adobe Bridge to make the subject stand out more.

I’ve seen some interesting examples of dark motion blur images and I wanted to see what I could do with my laser pointer. I set up my camera on a table (I was short on a tripod for this one) and turned out the lights. I turned the shutter speed down all the way to 2 seconds, then my roommate Lesilie wrote my name. It was exciting to begin dabbling with dark photography, and I’m really interested to explore the other possibilities out there.

If you noticed a reddish hue to all these photos, you’re not going crazy. I’ve been experimenting with all the settings on my camera, but nearly every photo has been coming out very dark and red. This little hiccup pushed me to be creative with my settings to try to overcome it. And luckily I could fix about 80% of it in post.

Any tips on how to solve this problem? I’m open for anything!