June Creative Photography Challenge

It's that time once again...the end of a month and a new challenge are just days away.  How on earth is the year almost half over already?  It's surely flying by!

Our June challenge is: 

Movement

We have the ability to capture on the camera what we are not able to see with our eyes: a precise moment frozen forever in time.  Before photography was around, mankind did not have the capability of knowing what something looked like as it stood still. (How's that for deep thoughts today?!?)  

We now have the technology to capture that precise moment, something frozen along it's progression from one place to another.  Though we are capturing a still moment in time, we can communicate a feeling of movement in our images on purpose, and this is exactly what we will be working on for our challenge this month!

Some things to think about with movement:

Fast shutter speeds allow us to freeze time, to catch our subject in mid-air or make a tack sharp image.  We use fast shutter speeds with children, in sports, wildlife or nature on a windy day.  A fast shutter speed is usually 1/100th of second or higher.  Though depending on the lighting conditions, the subject and your hand-holding-not-moving-or-breathing-while-you-shoot-skills, you can go as slow as 1/60th or 1/40th of a second.  When we freeze a moment in time like this, we communicate a feeling of time stopping to our viewer. 

We use slow shutter speeds when photographing in low light or at night,  or when we want our subject to be blurry.  Slower shutter speeds are _always_ used to get that silky water flow, and at night.  A tripod is a necessity when using slow shutter speeds, so if you don't have one yet, I suggest investing in one.

If you are a mobile device shooter, don't worry!  You can still join in with slow shutter speeds.  There are some apps to do this, and we will be going over those on the Instagram hub.  A tripod is also recommended for using slow shutters on phones.  

Slowing our shutter speeds can give our viewers a sense of movement as well, though to me this always feels more calm and serene than the abrupt stop of a faster shutter speed.

​Slower shutter speeds are also used to blur your subject on purpose.  Street photographer's use this method to show the movement of people (my attempt below...). It's also used in panning techniques or to make abstract images.  Panning is when your subject is mostly in focus and your background is blurry. You can make abstract images by moving your camera in a linear or circular motion as you press your shutter down. Though these take some practice and patience, it's fun to see what you get and try something creative!

To participate this month on Instagram, please use the tag: #2017creative_movement.  

In case you haven't heard, there is now an Instagram hub that goes along with the challenges!  It's only a couple month old now, and I've got a great team helping me out.  We feature images that have been tagged, as well as share tutorials, lessons and tips on things that pertain to the challenge that month. Go here if you'd like to follow along with us! We would _love_ to have you hang out with us on IG!  We will be focusing on different shutter speeds and types of movement each week and have some guests lined up to give us all their take on shutter speeds on dSLR's and phones!  We will be announcing which themes for each week on the hub itself, so don't miss it!

If you're not on Instagram, we've started a Creative Inspiration Community page in FB so we can push our posts directly there.  If you'd rather see posts there, find and follow the page here.  We don't get on there much, but at least you can see them still if you're on FB more than IG.

If you haven't joined the Facebook group yet, and would like to, go here.  It will send you to the FB group page, and you'll need to request to join.  You will have to be approved before you can get in, as it's a private group.  Ya know, to keep the weirdos out. ;)

Thank you to all of you who have joined me in this challenge!  It's been so fun to be inspired by your creativity, and learn along with you!