Look at the first and second shots with this week’s column. The first is of a
bongo drummer photographed at a function. It is a pleasant enough sharp shot of
a happy drummer, but the second shot has all the movement of the frenzied
drummer beating the bongos, and the motion is all there to be seen (and the
emotion). This second shot is not pin-sharp, but it does not need to be. The
photograph shows the subject is alive.
Bongo drummer.
You do not get these kinds of emotive photographs by setting
your DSLR on a shutter speed of 1/2000th of a second. Sure
that shutter speed will stop an express train, but you don’t want stopped
action, you want motion, and you get that with a slower speed. The photograph
was taken at 1/15th of a second and this was fast enough
to capture the drummer, but not fast enough to capture the hands, which is what
gives this shot appeal.
Weird Effects
Photography has been described as ‘painting with light’ and
somebody then added that the camera tells no lies, and both of these are just so
much nonsense. It would be much closer to the truth to say that photography is
all about ‘manipulating’ the light, and secondly, the camera tells as many lies
as you want it to!
You will also find that there are some rather weird effects
that you can find when manipulating that light. Many of these effects are just
accidental, but by working out how they happened, you can then reproduce them
when needed. Many of them are also very suitable for wall art, as because they
are different, they are then eye-catching.
Look at the 3rd picture with this
week’s column. What is it? Is it some weird kind of electrical storm? No, it was
produced by a mistake on my part, but one I can now reproduce. What happened was
I had set the camera up to bracket the exposure with three shots. The shutter
speed was about one second and I depressed the shutter to start the bracketing.
I thought I had completed all three exposures, but I had not, and after two
exposures moved the camera away. Since the shutter was still open, I got this
light trail effect, which you can produce yourself by putting the camera shutter
speed on say two seconds and then moving the camera around. Bright light sources
are good for this type of effect. Practice waving the camera at different speeds
and see what you get. It could be brilliant.
Electrical storm.
