About Life’s a Blur: A photography series that experiments with long exposures and motion blur. Every photo is a combination of movement mixed with a still subject. I’d like to think of each photo like a meditation: stillness in a sea of chaos.
These photos are also part of my Photo and 100 Words project. Since January 2014, I’ve been creating a new photo and writing about it every week. If you’re interested in finding out what prompted me to begin you can read the introduction over here.
(If you’re new to this photography series you might want to read how it all began in Part 1)
Hanging Out with the Dead
This set of photos is a bit like a series within a series. Determined to capture the beauty of fall (which I seem to miss most years), I set out to my favorite outdoor photography location: the cemetery. My idea was to pan the camera with the falling leaves and capture the motion in the background, but my lack of patience combined with my Photoshop skills guided me to an easier way to create what I was after.
Although each of these photos is made up of two separate photographs, they both came from the same scene. As I blurred the landscapes in my camera, I also collected leaves from each area to be photographed later on. That makes it real enough for me! =P
Collecting some pretty leaves, freshly fallen, from each scene I captured.
It was a brutal awakening, though, when it came time to silo the leaves. Have you ever gotten a close look at the serrated edges on a maple leaf?! Let’s just say I overestimated the “easy” factor.
The snapshot that follows each one of my final creations is to show you what each scene looked like before I blurred it into oblivion. I also include links to each original blog post in case you want to read the 100 words that go with it. Scroll down to the end if you want the nerdy technical details.
Fall Leaf Flight
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I reminisce about another cemetery shoot and show off my favorite mistake in the post that compliments this photo: In the Graveyard
A snapshot of the background scene before I blurred it in camera for “Fall Leaf Flight.”
Fall Spectrum
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A silly story about how I expected this shoot to go, and how it actually went.
A snapshot of the background scene before I blurred it in camera for “Fall Spectrum.”
Autumn in Orange and Blue
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A Leaf is Like a Pixel is a brief personal essay on the big picture and the small details of fall.
A snapshot of the background scene before I blurred it in camera for “Autumn in Orange and Blue.”
Autumn Leaf Flight
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The Life of a Hermit – an uncensored, and reoccurring, moment in my life.
A snapshot of the background scene before I blurred it in camera for “Autumn Leaf Flight.”
Wind Swept Leaf
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The Perfect Storm: go to the scene of the shoot with me in this post.
A snapshot of the background scene before I blurred it in camera for “Wind Swept Leaf.”
Red Zephyr
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I prove that seeing isn’t always a strong enough case for believing in this story about my dog and me. (Includes super cute photos of my pit bull in a monkey sweater, complete with monkey ears!)
A snapshot of the background scene before I blurred it in camera for “Red Zephyr.”
The Nerdy Photo Details
The background images were created with my 24-70 f/2.8 Nikkor lens set at 1 second and f/22. I shot through an adjustable neutral density filter that blocks anywhere from 1 to 4 stops of light, and I only adjusted this filter for the correct exposure in order to keep my shutter speed and aperture settings consistent.
Most of the leaf images were shot indoors with 1 flash in an umbrella up high on camera left. I might have had a white board on the right to bounce back some fill light, but I don’t remember for sure. The first leaf was actually shot outside, but dealing with the wind and cold convinced me to take the rest of the leaves into the studio to give me some more control.
What’s Next?
Well that’s all the juicy detail I thought you might enjoy about this set of photos. The Life’s a Blur series continues on with water motion blur techniques that create some magical looking backgrounds in Part 3.
Questions and comments are always welcome =)
