Week Three ....

Firstly, I must think up some more original titles to each learning log entry otherwise its going to get very boring.

I did the final two exercises this week in the Introduction unit, both around photographing movement.

The first was around shutter speeds and since I was already in the Kings Drive area of Eastbourne where there was plenty of traffic, I decided to use cars as my moving object. I took a number of photographs at a fixed point of cars passing across the viewfinder starting at a shutter speed of 1/15 and progressing through a number of shots up to 1/5000 (all on the TV setting).

There is a considerable sense of movement at 1/15 - the car is just a blur. You can get a true sense of the wheels moving where there is some really interesting 'cross-hatching' of the hubcaps on the wheel as the wheels faster than the car does.

Shutter speed at 1/15 f/14

The exposure at 1/500 makes the car look stationery and has no sense of movement at all and this continues more or less throughout the the remaining shots with the exception that as the shutter speed increases, the photograph becomes darker so that at 1/5000 it is barely visible.

Shutter speed 1/500 f/4.0

Shutter speed 1/5000 f/4.0

The second project was more interesting and involved a little more skill and technique and that was around panning. Again, I took a number of photographs attempting to pan with the vehicles and blurring the background. It took quite a few shots to get the hang of the techniques (thanks Esther!) and I found generally, I was panning too slow. The speed of my body movement got better as I carried on and I soon realised that I needed to speed up to get the better pictures.

Overall, I was happy with the results especially with the motorbikes which added more interest. Even with the vehicle still in the photograph, there is still motion in the wheels.

Panning at 1/80 - keeping it rocking!

I tried panning at shutter speeds of 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/80 and got the best results at 1/60 and at 1/80. At a shutter speed of 1/100 I got a photograph that didn't show any motion at all.

Most definitely the blurred background gives a strong sense of movement and my preference is for the background to be blurred rather than the subject.

Just one other thing - this exercise helped in overcoming the self-consciousness I mentioned last week. Many of the drivers were distracted by my photography (which was possibly a reckless thing on my part) and most smiled or even waved.

My other photographic news this week was that I got a Highly Commended certificate for my bluebell photograph in the Arlington Bluebell Walk competition I entered in the Spring - my first competition too! My photograph can be seen on the Gallery Page for 2010 in Class B on http://www.bluebellwalk.co.uk/ as can also one of my other photographs under 'Imaginative!'. You can imagine how delighted I was.

I'm looking forward to moving on to the next part of the course this coming week.

As a reminder, all my photographs for the projects can be seen in my Flikr account.