Photographing Motion by Maegan

A photograph is a representation of a certain point in time which transmits a story of that particular moment. As mesmerizing as still photography is, for this particular reason, capturing motion suggests further conveyance of these stories. Our given task was to show the works of everyday life through motion photography. We had the opportunity to play around with various objects and techniques that would make for exceptional motion photographs. Given that the settings, technique and composition of the shots were vastly different from the usual still photography we'd been used to, trial and error was required. Finally, we had gotten the hang of panning, stop motion, blurring to show motion and exagerrated movement. It was definitely a pleasurable experience to be pushed out of our comfort zone and into a more creative mentality that produced immensely fascinating shots.

Panning is essentially a technique of photographing motion by allowing your camera to follow the subject during movement. A great amount of trial and error was done to get the right shots because at first, the photos turned out either too blurry, not blurred enough or simply plain white. These problems root from having the subject and the camera move without accordance to each other. The shutter speed may be too slow for the speed of both the camera and the subject. The subject may be moving too fast, so could the camera which produces a picture that may be too blurry or all white.  It could also be too fast, combined with slow speed of camera movement which produces an almost still picture. We discovered that having the subject, panning of the camera and the shutter speed all in accordance to each other will definiteky create the best results which idealy, would have a focal point that is in focus with its background having a shallow depth of field, showing motion. Aside from this technique, we experimented with having our subject stay still while we pan the camera. More or less, almost the same results are acquired, still with the proper settings.


Capturing stop motion and exagerated movement are personal favourites of mine for two reasons: I found that the settings were not too hard to figure out and the subject and motion of the picture are not restricted in order to acquire a specific goal. Given that I shoot for sports a lot, I was very familiar with what type of settings were needed for fast moving subjects. Several attempts were needed to get the timing right between the subject and the shutter. This meant that we had to continuously move around which, I didn't mind, as we had a lot of fun. We shot with faster shutter speeds in order to catch as much of the movement as possible. With the right ISO and a wider aperture number, we were able to capture that perfect fraction of a second that provided for a fun photograph.


Obviously enough, this is not how a normal person holds a hula hoop around - this is an exageration. I tried as best as I could to contort my body in a way that would show hyperbolic movement which is essentially all that is needed to create a beautiful shot. Combined with somewhat the same settings from stop motion photography, awesome pictures will be produced.


As with panning, the objective of blurred motion photographs are to have a main focal point that is totally in focus while the motion can still be seen as a blur. Therefore, the concept of the settings are basically almost the same. There really isn't a set rule for blurred motion shots because it depends on the type of show you want. For a sharper photo, the aperture should be a wider hole, veering away from a shallow depth of field. The shutter speed should not be too fast, not too slow - just perfect enough for the desired type of shot. We also used these settings to use light in our photography wherein we were able to draw varying shapes, names, patterns, etc. Overall, I loved photographing motion because of the uniqueness that each shot possesses. It is like a new perspective of telling a story - a photo worth more than just a hundred words.