After passing through a wonderfully forested and lightly farmed portion of Alger County, County Road H58 turns northeastward to skim the boundary of the eastern reaches of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore on its run to Hurricane Beach and beyond to the village of Grand Marais. As it begins to parallel the waters of Gitche Gumee, H58 wanders through a beautiful forest of white birch and aspen, whose floor is a carpet of bracken fern. It is one of my favorite places in the Pictured Rocks, an intimate landscape photographer’s dream.
In the somewhat overcast, but reasonably bright daylight, my settings were chosen mostly to keep my shutter open as long as was needed to accomplish my preconceived goal. A focal length of 125mm gave me the angle-of-view I wanted, which, when the camera was at the height of its movement, did not include sky. An aperture of f/20 provided depth-of-field and contributed to the potential for a sufficiently long shutter speed. And at ISO 100, the shutter speed engendered was 1.6 seconds for an overall medium exposure.
With my camera on a tripod for better control and the self-timer function set for 5-second delay, I released the shutter and began slowly and slightly raising and lowering the camera/tripod vertically until the shutter opened. As the shutter continued open I continued the movement and then lowered the tripod to its stable position before the shutter closed. This allowed the camera movement to be contained in a blurred vertical plane as the image was exposed.
Even though we have led our last workshops in Pictured Rocks, I believe we will find a way to work there again, for PRNL and Hiawatha National Forest are two of our favorite public lands. Please join with me in supporting our common wealth treasures and national heritage.
Love it.
Hey Robert. It’s great to hear from you! When Bonnie and went through Gatlinburg recently I wondered as to your whereabouts and whether you are still dividing time between the Smokies and Illinois. Hope you are safe and well. I very much appreciate your kind words. I would love to hear what you’ve been up to. Walk in Beauty.
Great example of intentional camera movement. I’ve been reading about ICM and here you do it. Great shot with a great tutorial. Thank you
Hi Richard. It’s good to have you with us! What a year it has been since we were together at Lake Junaluska. I hope you have remained safe and well in these tumultuous times, and that you have found ways to continue on your photographic journey. From your comment, it seems that you certainly have done so. I’m very glad to hear it. In case you may be interested, we do have a workshop currently on the books for Acadia National Park in June, 2021. Acadia is a wonderful location to experiment with ICMs. I’m glad that this Image and the tutorial were helpful. There are several techniques for creating ICMs and all are a lot of fun. Take good care.
Looks like a watercolor
Hi Bob; it’s always good to hear from you and to have your artist’s take on my creations. To me, one of the true beauties of creating intentional camera movement is the often watercolor-like outcome that is obtained. The camera can be enticed to do what my hands are not able to achieve. Your thoughtful comment is much appreciated. Walk in Beauty, my Friend.
Nice!
Hey Terri. Thank you so much for joining us. Your kind comment is deeply appreciated. Be well, stay safe and take good care.
Stunning, Don. Just the right amount of movement and blur.
Hi Larry. It’s excellent to hear from you. I hope that your life in the pandemic has been filled with wonder and creative opportunity. Our Road Scholar adventure with you seems like a long while ago, so I hope you have remained well and safe. Thanks so much for your kind comment. One of the most challenging aspects of ICMs is learning the appropriate time for the shutter to be open and for the camera to be moving to achieve the desired outcome, knowing that the desired outcome changes from situation to situation.
Very interesting description of your motion technique. The few times I’ve tried motion, I’ve purposely opened the shutter just after a single moving pass begins, and closed it just before it ends, so there is no motionless moment while the shutter is open. I like the effect of your moment of stability.
Howdy Donald. ICMs are a perfect artform for your mathematical songster’s engineering mind. The outcome of the creation appears to be so casual and unintended, and yet, like all good art, is the result of careful planning and execution. I hope you are staying safe and well. Having the creative thought process result in a creation that confirms the process and is thoughtful and interesting is the goal of every artist’ effort. I’m assuming that you are in Arizona and hope you are having a wonderful time. Thanks for your kind and thoughtful words.
Hi Don,Hope all is well. We had the same experience in the Adirondacks.We were gifted with some spectacular color and two days of heavy rains and wind, brought it to an abrupt end. While the color pallet and technique used in composing the image is excellent, I do have one comment which is almost exactly the same as a discussion I was having with another accomplished photographer about a similar scene. The weight and placement of the dark tree trunk initially forces my eye to it and prevents me from wandering throughout the rest of the image.There is so much else going on with this composition(IE. the birches in the b/g) that don’t get the viewers attention they deserve. Again just my opinion and why we have these discussions. Be Well, John
Hey John. It’s great to hear from you! I have enjoyed following your autumn antics on Social Media, often wishing that the color you found in the Adirondacks could have been matched by what the Smokies had to offer. May there be next year. Bonnie and I are well and hope the same for you, Michelle and your family. I do really appreciate your observations, for you are exactly correct about the wonderful discussions that are fostered by our diverse ways of “seeing.” the visual world. Once I created an entire slide program on Balance in Imagery.” In doing it I learned more about how we see images than I could ever have imagined, and of course, one of the ultimate take-aways was that there are multiple ways to visualize whether balance in any given image has been achieved. Success is quite commonly a matter of opinion. As Rotenberg used to say, “Argue for your vision.” And we should.
One of the key components of balance is the visual weight of the various elements in relation to each other, in relation to themselves individually and in relation to the image frame. The dark tree was certainly a visual mass of dark tonality, although it isn’t black, and I placed it fairly near, but not on, the left third vertical line. This allowed me the entire remainder of the frame to fill with lighter tonalities of varying degrees and levels of warmth, remembering that in any image the eyes will always be drawn to brightness, sharpness and warmth. So, for me, the tree was counterbalanced by the entire remainder of the frame, which allowed me to let my eyes be led to the tree initially but not feel constrained to remain there since there was so much other warmer, lighter and brighter tonality to experience.
One of the primary considerations about tonality is how much dark and how much light tonality are necessary to offset each other, and in this instance I felt that the dark tree was sufficiently counter-weighted by everything else so that my eyes did not get stuck on it. That’s why you are so special and we have such meaningful discussions about the creative process. Walk in Beauty, Dear Friend and stay well.
That image must have been fun to make; it is fun to look at. This effect, while using a tripod, is a lot different than hand-held shots. I like your choice of the tripod here because it makes the trees stand out more against the background. I wonder what it would have looked like if you made double exposure, one with motion and one without…
The colors are peak outside my open window! I LOVE this time of year!!
Hi Nancy T. It’s always great to have you join us. Your observations are always thought-provoking and fun! Your ideas about a double exposure ICM are interesting. I tried one just a couple of days ago, except it was a triple-exposure: one with the camera moving and two with stillness. I haven’t processed them yet, but I’ll let you know. They were of water and rock and not of forest. I’ll try a forest scene next.
Stay well, Dear One, and be safe.
Your wonderful image is a reminder of our time in that area of the UP. I took some in-camera motion photos and some two-image photos there. The color is so fantastic
Hey Charles. It’s great to have you with us! We had such a wonderful time with Everyone in the UP; and we’re looking forward to having you with us in Acadia. It will be an excellent opportunity to play with techniques like this, and I’m waiting to see what you come up with. Hope you and Joanna are both well. Walk in Beauty.
Thank you, Everyone, for contributing to such a wonderful set of comments and observations. The whole concept of Intentional Camera Movement is one filled with creative possibility. I encourage to to explore it whenever you have an opportunity and to share what you learn with everyone. This is a part of our photographic journey that brings us together as explorers and allows us to experience the creative process in ways that are not necessarily traditional to photography, but can advance our creativity beyond measure.
Have an excellent week and Walk in Beauty.