Fall Fun

[ken1953]

Hello all...this is a shot I normally would have thrown away, that is, until I found PR. However, my untrained eye (and brain) still thinks of this as a "bad" shot, because my subject is blurred, and in actuality, I did this on purpose, just for this discussion.
My question is....Does this work? If so, why? If not, Why not?...I have been reading that blurring like this shows action. Is this too much blur?? I am posting this here instead of critique as I tend to think of critique for more finished works or how to improve your works. This one...I am more curious on starting the discussion on using blurred images to show motion.
As always...all comments very welcome!!!
Ken

[another view]

Ken, I don't have a good example here, but IMO blurring usually works best when either the subject is fairly sharp and the background is blurred, or the shot is taken in low light with a flash and long shutter speed. The flash shows a sharp image of the person over the motion blur. Of course this isn't a rule, it's just what I've come up with from shooting. I'll see if I can find an example or two later.

I can think of an exception - I shot a wedding reception in an old theater this summer. I went in the balcony and shot all of the people dancing with a long shutter speed, so they were blurred but the background of the old theater was sharp. I guess the dancers weren't really the subject in this case though...

Good idea for a shot though. I don't know if you have any manual control with your camera, but if you did you could try the flash trick in the evening when the light goes down enough that you could use a long shutter speed.

[Asylum Steve]

Fortunately (or unfortunately as the case may be) there are no distinct rules when it comes to having blurred elements in a shot.

Sometimes a shot works with a sharp bg and blurred moving subjects, sometimes with blurred bg and flash frozen subjects, many times with everything blurred just a bit. Some of the top commercial photographers have shot national ad campaigns with blurred images (think Guess Jeans).

It often becomes subjective, and seldom does everyone agree on whether these shots are good or not.

Your pic seems to have all the elements of a good blur shot: sharp bg with an isolated subject moving and being blurred, and that blur portraying action and emotion. And yet to me, it doesn't work aside from being an interesting idea.

I think the blur of the subject is just a bit too much and so vibrates in the scene. The fact that they're smack dab in the center of the frame also hurts the composition.

What would make this pic better is if it were part of a sequence of the subject running around and jumping in the leaves, the bg scene staying exactly the same, and only the position and movement of the subject changing in each shot. Then it takes on a new meaning, and the rules for a good blur shot would change...

[Jacqui]

What "another view" said. She is the one I want to look at and see the expression on her face. Try the flash trick, it's loads of fun. (p.s. when you go to reshoot it, please be sure there are no cars in the background. :-) )

[another view]

Been a little tied up in the evenings so I haven't had a chance to pull out examples, but this thread has good examples of blurring the background.

This is done by "panning", which is following the action with the camera's viewfinder and usually using a somewhat slow shutter speed.