This exercise is really about panning – capturing movement from an artistic perspective to add to the picture’s appeal. For this exercise I had to park my normal quest for sharpness and clarity and attempt to create something that not only conveys movement but something more…
I decided people would be easy to find walking around the shopping centre, so I found a nice bright area where there was plenty of sunshine from the glass roof.
Setting a slow shutter speed of 1/15 sec gave me a chance to freeze the main area of the shot but still retain movement in arms and legs – something I learnt from the last exercise. People walking in that one stayed fairly sharp even down to 1/60 sec.
To get some depth in the images I shot over a landing area that opened out so you could see down two floors – this allowed me to keep the foreground free of shoppers but left the railings there as some interest in front of the subject. In the first posted shot, I really think this works. The main subject is mostly sharp and the sunlit railings create a nice effect.
For image two I shot looking straight down, which makes panning a little odd compared normal horizontal panning, but it produces some different effects. What’s odd in this one is that the plane cutting through the subjects from 11 o’clock to 5 seems in better focus than either side. I like this one, and with tighter cropping it may look better. Brighter colours would have helped against the flat background may also have helped.
Image 3 is on the floor in between the upper and lower floors shown in the previous two shots, and is more in shade. For this reason the I had to drop the shutter speed down to 1/10 sec, but I’m really pleased with how the main subject is frozen. I must have panned reasonably accurately in this case – while the body remains sharp if you look at the subjects arms they have nearly disappeared and the legs are quite blurred too. As in the last shot, cropping to make the main subject off-centre would significantly add to the feel of the shot.
The camera I have has the most accurate focus point in the centre, so this series was taken that way. At the end of this I’ll experiment with a little cropping – that focus down-side is made up for by lots of pixels which make cropping very viable.
Image has the shutter speed dropped to 1/5 sec and has few nice elements to it. First, there’s the social element – despite the movement you can see the woman in the couple clearly addressing her companion. Secondly the panning has done a decent job of freezing the movement of the main couple but also the shadow of the male subject in the shot. The circular pattern in the floor accentuates the direction of travel of the main subjects too; something that I can see on the shot now but wasn’t aware when I took it. Shame on me and duly noted!
The exercise asked for 10-12 photos and by way of experimenting I actually took about 50! Out of them I quite like this one – the gentleman has such a purposeful walk which the picture conveys, and everything is blurred by motion in a good way.
Again, some judicious cropping would improve things, probably by removing the corner of the balcony to the bottom left; this distracts from the clean look of the rest of the image.
This shot is probably my favourite; it looks more like ‘zoom blur’ rather than motion blur with everything seemingly blurred towards the centre. Also, no cropping is required to give the shot more impact, it seems to have what it needs right there. The bustle of the centre is nicely conveyed, as well as the urgency of the mother wanting to ‘get somewhere’. From a composition perspective the white podium does detract the focus image somewhat, but given the scene it’s forgiveable (I hope!).
The last photo was done using the slowest shutter speed here, a just 1/3 sec. I like it because the curve of the rail remains in tact and the main subject appears to have formed multiple images of his limbs, rather than forming a more fluid blur.
All in all I really enjoyed this exercise – other than trying to take pictures of moving cars I think I’ve rarely used panning techniques and I’ve certainly never used it for creative purposes. Right at the beginning I said I generally pursue clean, sharp pictures and I don’t think any here meet that criteria, but they all have a story to tell. Image 6 in particular stands out for me, with the busy shoppers heading in all directions and especially the ones travelling in the opposite direction to the panning – they look like they’re jumping to ‘warp speed’! The child in the push chair is looking in my general direction – if he’d have looked at me it would have been even better.
There is one more thing I’ve learnt: men walk faster than women, unless the woman has a pram! Take from that what you will…