Module 2: Assignment 6
Street Photography with Shutter Speed
Task: Utilizing the attributes of Street photography to gain an understanding of shutter speeds as well as elements of observation, action and chance. Street photography also sometimes called candid photography, is photography conducted for art or enquiry that features unmediated chance encounters and random incidents within public spaces. Street photography does not necessitate the presence of a street or even the urban environment. Though people usually feature directly, street photography might be absent of people and can be of an object or environment where the image projects a decidedly human character in aesthetic.
Create a series of 6 photos inspired by street photography that will demonstrate how shutter speeds blur or freeze motion
Discussion: Finding a consistently moving object is one of the most difficult challenges I have faced while taking part in this course. Unless you have the gift of premonition, you can’t accurately tell when the subject you are attempting to catch moving will suddenly stop, like a dog who stops short at a tree to sniff the ground, or change direction, like a pedestrian rounding the corner of a block. Sports offers predictable movement, and thus was a natural choice for me to try and capture.
I fluttered between shutter settings, trying to find a mix of images where the ball was blurred in constant movement and where the ball was frozen in time. The majority of the shots taken were frozen images, contrary to last week’s assignment where my moving object was exclusively blurred. While playing with the shutter settings, I noticed constant issues with lighting. In one included photo, the issue of over exposure is obvious, the light intensity suggests heavy lighting when in fact, the image was taken during the golden hour.
Comments: I have the most complications in my photography when the image is not static. I’m sure that’s a pretty common complaint, but when I have split seconds to decide where I want to focus, what settings I want to apply, and at which angles I want to capture my subject, I struggle with capturing those all at once.