It's About Time

We often don't consider time as an important feature of still photography. Of course, we typically make sure we have a fast enough shutter speed to freeze action but a slow shutter conveys dynamics and movement often in a powerful way.

This shot of ducks landing along the Madison River was one of my favorite shots from the trip even though it was an accident since I had the camera set up for landscape shooting on a tripod.

A similar thing happened to me in Monument Valley when some wild horses ran in front of our van.

 

Enough water blur can typically be obained by increasing the aperture or decreasing the ISO...

  

  

Sometimes for mid-day shots a neutral density filter is needed to get the shutter speed low enough as in this case where an ND400 filter was used.

Dragging the shutter can produce interesting and dynamic effect when combined with camera movement or zoom...

  

In this forest scene the camera was intentionally moved up and down during the exposure...

 

Here the shot was taken from a moving vehicle with the shutter speed left intentionally long for an abstract effect...

When you are looking for a creative idea or approach, try playing with time!