So maybe you’ve broken the bank on a piece or two of super fine glass, I’m talking the $1000+ kind of lens that is super sweet. You’ve practiced your technique into the wee hours of the night until you’ve become a human tripod (stop snickering ladies – you know what I mean). Maybe you even make sure to never shoot at a shutter speed below your focal length. Perhaps you go so far as to use a hybrid laser grid diode to measure distance and track that custom rig robotic focus ring-spinner you named Charlie. All in the pursuit of tack sharp images. Well, it’s time to unplug the bot, buddy and get blurry.

Why on earth would you want to take a blurry image on purpose? To communicate, that’s why. Don’t you want to communicate with your photography? I do. Getting blurry, if you do it right, is a great way to create a mood.

I talked about blurring with regards to using ND filters way back in this How and Why ND Filter post and listed some cool things blurriness can help communicate.

• create a dream like feeling for the viewer
• insinuate the passage of time
• suggest a feeling of uneasiness, off balance-ness
• imply a character’s euphoria

But I’m going to ask you to take it up a notch here. Use it to tell a story that you couldn’t tell with a single in focus image. Really think about it. Getting blur into your images isn’t hard. There are only three I can think of. So put some work into why you’re going to use it.

Three ways to introduce blur into your images.

1. Slow down your shutter. Keep that shutter open long enough and the whole world will pass you by in a blur.
2. Speed up your action. Even a fast shutter like 1/1000 is no match for something super fast like spinning helicopter blades or my credit card balance at an ice cream sandwich convention.
3. Move. Yeah, I’m talking to you. You don’t always have to move the action in front of the camera, sometimes you can just move the camera.

There are all kinds of ways to make this blurring artful, but I find a nice tip is to somehow keep an element in the image not-blurry while other elements abuse the blur. For instance, if you lock down your camera, but keep the shutter open, a building would be in focus, but the people walking in and out of it would be blurry. It’s not exactly rocket science. However, you can get tricky if you like. That’s what I like to do. Yeah, Captain Tricky of the S.S. Sneaky. That’s me. I like to lock the camera down (as best as I can) to something that is moving. That way stationary objects are blurry and objects in motion that are in sync with the camera’s motion are not blurry – or significantly less blurry at least.

In this image I held the camera, pointed at myself (this was taken right after the ice cream sandwich convention – one too many?). I spun around, firing the shutter half way through the spin. That put the room in motion. Toss in some cheesy acting to sell the idea and slam! Nice shot!

This weekend think about how you could use blur to help communicate an idea, then get out there and shoot it. Feel free to post a link to your shots in the comments below or put the image in the Nice Flickr pool. The pool is feeling pretty lonely, but you go on and live your lives. It’ll be fine. No need to stop by. You didn’t even send it a birthday card! Wha?

Nice!

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