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Motion Digital Photography

The world in motion and photography of frustration, this seemingly simply concept carries very complicated means. This is a very fun and rewarding type of freelance digital photography but also the most inconsistent and needs a ton of practice. Capturing Motion is the art of taking digital photos of actions anticipated or unanticipated, making true use of a cameras mechanics to show the given aspect of movement with qualities such as blur and depth perception. A type of photograpy that adapts the philosophy of try and try again, but the amount of tries will slowly decrease after you get a real understanding for motion. Well lets get started.



  Jump to a Motion Subject  
-Anticipated or Unanticipated Actions-   -How to Hold and Angle-
-Using Exposure -   -Panning Motion-
   -Radial Motion-   -Background and Foreground Blurring-
   -Multi-shot-

Anticipated or Unanticipated

Anticipated and Unanticipated digital photos is simply referring to a motion that is foreseen or unforeseen. Lets take an example of a golf swing, that would be an anticipated motion because you are well aware of what is going to happen an approximately when to shoot the action. But a bird flying away or children playing basketball is an unanticipated motion because you are not aware of what is going to happen so you make do with what you got. If you were going to take a picture of a roller coaster you know its not only going to come around once, so you have time to setup a angle, position and maybe even a tripod. I just wanted to make these definitions clear.

This would be considered an unanticipated action


Holding and Angling your Digital Camera

Keeping the camera steady isn't that high on the priorities list, although keeping the background in focus is important because that is the point of reference that makes it different than just taking an out of focus picture. Obviously taking pictures at unanticipated moments would mean that a tripod is inaccessible, so you're going to have to shoot it by hand. Here is our advice to getting a good unanticipated shot, lets say a ball is being thrown between two people but you don't really know at what times.

Zoom your camera out as far as it can go and take general pictures when you think the said action is going to happen. If you zoom in too far you can risk the ball or person not being in the shot because erratic movement, instead take it zoomed out and zoom in later in photoshop or your camera. I only recommend this to people with a Mega pixel digital camera of 5 or over, anything lower than that could show up blurry when zoomed in.

When taking photos of an action make sure you take it at an angle where it is sure to show the velocity of the object/subject. Meaning if you take a photo of a ball in motion from behind the balls path of motion then you will barely see the range of motion the ball had. Instead try taking it where you can see the ball's full path and can show its dimensions.

Capture a picture of a musician such as a guitarist, violinist, or pianist, while their hands are in motion their face gives you the quality of what they are playing. This is another great example of anticipated and unanticipated actions, a violinist at a quartet is a anticipated action, a guitarist at a rock concert is a unanticipated action because c'mon who really knows what a guitarist in a rock band is going to do???

Using Exposure to Capture Motion

Exposure time is the time the camera exposes itself to the picture you're taking, the longer the exposure time the more light that will be let into your camera. Too high of a exposure time will result in over exposure. Another effect of high exposure times is to capture motions in a single frame in a blurred sense of motion. Too much motion in a given amount of exposure will result in a too much blur and an imperceivable photograph. Now that we got that out of the way... the great thing about exposure is it really exemplifies a motion way more than a normal shutter time. Now you can catch a small amount of movement. So if we took a runner and zoomed out a little bit and added a half second or a second of exposure time, it would appear that the runner has made it through the whole frame of the picture (depending on how fast the person was going). When using higher exposure times your going to need a stand for any accuracy at all. br>
Another thing to do is to photograph moving lights on a high exposure at night time. It will create nice artistic lighting effects. Read more about it in the Lights section.

Motion Panning

Panning with the subject in motion is a neat trick to get a nice blur, when you do this it will appear that a sum of the subject will be in focus while the rest is not. You need to set your exposure time a little higher, maybe about a second. Remember when you have a higher exposure time it can't be that bright or you will risk over exposure, so the brighter the setting is the lower the exposure you want. As you see an action happening (usually a linear action such as a runner, or a car driving by) follow it with your camera and press the button. This will take tons of practice because there is not a lot of certainty when moving with the camera, but I recommend trying it, if you get it right you will love it.

Radial Motion Another technique in freelance motion photography that is very hard to master is the radial blur, it gives the picture a focused center and circular blurring effect. It is simply done by getting a exposure time of a second or two, and when you snap the picture you slowly turn the camera maybe 20 degrees keeping it very steady at the same time. If done correctly you will have a nice radial blur.

Background and Foreground Motion Blurring

Background blurring is when you take a picture and the subject in the foreground stays stationary while the rest moves and gets blurry. Taking a photo in a car is a good example because inside the car will appear to be stationary and the outside is a streak of motion. The inverse of that is the more common foreground motion blur, which means the background is stationary and the subject is in motion. A ball bouncing in a standing still background is a good example of foreground motion.

Taking Multi-shots

A great way to select the perfect motion is to take many of the same action, we had the trial and error approach but now we are going to trial and error many pictures at once. Now your digital camera might not have this option, but if it does this is the time to take advantage of it. The option should be under general picture taking settings in your digital camera and should be called something like multi shot or something along those lines. A digital camera usually allows you to take about 12 photos, which sometimes that is too many but you have a lot of photos to choose from. So when that guy is winding up for the pitch you can take it with all confidence that one of the pictures will be nearly perfect.

Earning a living from your Digital Photos

If you love doing freelance digital photography, then wouldn't you want to get paid to take pictures. Becoming a freelance digital photographer is much easier than your thinking, there is no expensive equipment involved, you just need the internet and a digital camera. Business owners and potential buyers need freelance photographers to take their pictures, this is where you come in, you can sell your photos for a profit. Depending on how much you work, you can make some solid money, and the market isn't saturated because this is still a new business/career choice. Everything can be learned even if you don't have the greatest photography skills you can still do great. The resources you need are something we do not possess but there are websites dedicated to giving you the tools and information necessary to get started in a few days. Click Here! to get started, and I wish you the best.