How does photography express stillness and motion?

Whether it is to condense a moment or to show the passage of time, shutter speed has always become a game in the photographer's control. In this chapter, we will discuss the application of shutter speed in humanistic photography. The following is my understanding of how to express stillness and motion in photography. Welcome to reading.

Combination of dynamic and static.

Photography is a static art, but at the same time it is dynamic. When you narrow the aperture of the lens and slow down the shutter speed, you may have different effects. You don't have to use a slow shutter to shoot at night. You can also use a slower shutter speed at noon to create blurred and dynamic effects.

First of all, you can find a fixed foreground or background composition, such as an ancient statue, a distinctive building, or a wall painted with patterns, and take these fixed scenes as static visual elements. Then, you can choose a suitable angle, wait for the dynamic visual elements such as pedestrians, tourists, bicycles or motorcycles to enter the picture, and then press the shutter. Using a slow shutter in good light can achieve a lower shutter speed by adjusting the aperture. Try several different shutter and aperture combinations and you will get the desired effect.

This is a temple in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, with a history of nearly a thousand years. Because of the war, many ancient and exquisite Buddha statues were hidden here by their ancestors. This photo was taken in the sunny sunshine at noon, and the Buddha statue in the cloister was half illuminated by scattered light. I waited until the tourists in bright clothes ran past the cloister door and pressed the shutter. Faced with this situation, you can take some photos first to see how the characters are blurred. My general experience is that people who walk or jog can get ideal blur effect with shutter speed of115 ~1/20s. If the background is dark, try to choose people wearing bright clothes as blur objects.

If possible, a tripod can ensure the clarity of the photo. If you need to compose while moving, it depends on your hand-held skills. My experience is that the slowest shutter speed of a handheld camera is115s. If the speed is too slow, there may be no way to ensure the clarity of the photo.

It should be noted that because the light ratio of scattered light from the left corridor to the light under the direct sunlight on the right is relatively large, I used a gray gradient filter to balance the exposure.

Cold and warm contrast

When shooting historical sites, religious sites, buildings or monuments, it is often difficult for us to vividly show them. Such a subject is cold and lifeless, and if you simply shoot, it is likely to make the picture look dull. Of course, when shooting such a historical or commemorative theme, we should choose better light, such as early morning or evening light, to create an atmosphere of light and shadow effect, or shoot at night with the help of street lamps or spotlights, and the effect will be gorgeous. My usual method is to incorporate the human element into the shooting of such themes, slow down the shutter speed and treat the characters as virtual shadows, creating an atmosphere of rushing through history. The combination of dynamic and static. * * * Highlight the texture and sense of history of historical sites. Sometimes I will choose to show the cold metal texture with a lower color temperature in the dark, or shoot when locals or tourists wearing warm colors pass by to create a contrast between cold and warm.

In the evening, the broken bridge on the Yalu River glowed with a deep blue metallic luster, and a tourist in red hurried by. Located on the Yalu River in Dandong City, Liaoning Province, this broken bridge is a relic of Japanese colonial rule and was blown up in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. It is the "broken bridge" of the first large-scale iron bridge in Yalu River, and still remains in Dandong, China. The bridge was completed in June 19 1 1, and it is a 12-span bridge. 195 1 was bombed by the US military in February, and the remaining four holes and residual bridges on the China side have been preserved to this day. 1993, the "Broken Bridge" of Yalu River was re-maintained, developed and utilized, and renamed as "End Bridge". At that time, the sky was dark. I take the railway bridge still in use in the future as the background, and its black steel frame divides the gray-blue sky in a form. The dark blue tone brought by the low color temperature to the broken bridge is very mysterious and charming. The twisted steel plates and clearly visible rivets caused by the bombing instantly solidified history. The two black shells in the middle of the picture suggest that this land has experienced the baptism of war. At this moment, a tourist in red came from a distance. I took a slow shutter speed of110 second when he first walked into this picture. Tourists are blurred into bright red, which brings a warm feeling to the bleak and dark tone of the whole picture. The combination of cool and warm colors and fiction and fact makes this photo very attractive.

Instant eternity

It's not easy to shoot a child. To put it simply, no matter where the children are, even in a foreign country where the language is unreasonable, they will show their innocence, liveliness and cheerfulness in front of your camera, which will become our important shooting object; I don't know, because children are very active. They don't take pictures of old people slowly and choose light. If the light is not good, especially if you are shooting a scene where a group or several children are moving, your photos are likely to be too slow and not so clear. Therefore, in order to capture the fleeting moments in children's activities, I choose to enlarge the aperture almost every time I shoot children, and at the same time choose a higher shutter speed to condense children's innocent expressions and lovely actions.

On the seashore of Bali, Indonesia, several children are playing in clear water. When shooting such a group of children in the game scene, we should pay attention to their rich and lovely expressions and actions.

I met these local children on the beach by the sea. They are born with a close relationship with the ocean. They lay on the beach and let the white waves beat their bronzed skin. After some simple communication, these children gradually got used to me and my camera and kept posing in various interesting positions.

This is a pleasant and touching moment. I use a wide-angle lens to get as close as possible to them and form a very close interaction with them. I also used a high shutter speed to concentrate the splashing waves and the children's cute expressions and exaggerated movements.

Dynamic contrast static.

Deliberately blurring the subject is a creative photography technique, which goes beyond the simple recording and freeze-frame functions of photography, such as shooting the subject of dance. You can try to blur the dancer's movements with a slow shutter speed to make the whole photo look abstract and artistic. When shooting many still subjects, such as statues, exquisite murals and other historical themes, in order to reflect the sense of history and highlight the exquisiteness of works of art, you can wait for someone to pass the subject you want to shoot before shooting at a lower shutter speed, blurring the characters, thus setting off the color, texture and sense of history of the subject you want to shoot. This can also reflect the proportion of subject and person and the actual size.

A devout pilgrim from Yushu, Qinghai, bowed his head and respectfully walked past a huge painted stone sculpture of Sakyamuni in Sera Temple on the outskirts of Lhasa. The background in the picture is a painted stone mural with rich content, bright colors and strong texture. This stone mural has become the main object of the picture, but if I just shoot this mural in the picture, it will seem a bit rigid and monotonous, so I will wait for someone to shoot it when the mural passes by. I use the slow shutter speed to turn the devout believers who bow their heads into a vague figure. It is precisely because of this black figure that the clear and bright colors and stone textures of the background stone Buddha statues are more displayed.

The moment of condensation

The most important thing to shoot the theme of people's sports and competitions is the moment of cohesion. For the event you want to shoot, every event has a decisive moment. For example, horses' hooves are dancing, athletes jump out of the water in swimming, or the scene of a game in ball games, and so on. To freeze the action of people in action, you need to use a high-speed shutter. You need to think about this topic first. What's his moving speed? Then choose the appropriate shutter speed. Although the condensed action in the picture seems to be static, the high-speed condensed action can predict the state and trend of the action. For example, if you see a person riding a horse with his legs flying without landing, you will immediately realize that this is a fast horse, not a horse standing still on the ground. But in some cases, for example, if you shoot a moving car, if you freeze the car with a high-speed shutter, but you can't see the car moving, it seems to be parked on the road, it is because the car has no movement and posture to give you a hint of movement.

The highlight of the Dangxiong Horse Racing Festival is held on the grassland. Teenagers ride horses without saddles. The races at the Horse Racing Festival are more than ten kilometers long. Many judges time at the finish line, and the champion will get a certificate and a 500 yuan cash prize. This kind of horse racing has been going on in this grassland in northern Tibet for nearly a thousand years.

The sky was not very clear that day, with thick dark clouds and poor lighting conditions. I use a 300mm telephoto lens. I can only get a shutter speed of 1/250 seconds at the maximum by adjusting the aperture. In this case, when I shoot by hand with a telephoto lens, I must pay attention to stabilizing the camera, otherwise the picture may be blurred. You can choose a monopod to solve this problem. Monopods are more flexible and light than tripods, and can always be fixed on the ground to shoot. If there is no monopod at the scene, we can only rely on the stability of our hands. I tracked and focused on this boy who came from far away, dressed in orange and riding a white horse. I pressed the shutter at the moment when his hooves danced, so that such a photo was condensed by a high-speed shutter.

When composing music, I didn't arrange the boy riding a horse in the center of the picture, but let him deviate from the center. The off-center position makes the subject feel stronger, and also implies the route the subject has taken, making the picture more interesting.

Freezing motion

The greatest feature of still life photography is that it can concentrate moving moments. You may not remember the picture of a movie or TV program, but you will remember a photo that touched you. This may be the greatest charm of still life photography. If you want to freeze the instantaneous action of a moving character, you need to use a higher shutter speed. For example, if you want to take a picture of a person jumping up and condense his state in mid-air into a photo, you need to use at least the shutter speed of 1/350s, and of course you need to adjust the shutter speed according to the actual situation. The best way is to practice more, so as to know what shutter speed is most suitable for shooting what kind of action. If you shoot a moving person with a telephoto lens, you need a higher shutter speed. Professional sports photographers sometimes use the shutter speed of 1/4000s to concentrate the high-speed movement of athletes.

Shazhou, a military fortress with a history of more than 2,000 years, has now become a paradise for a group of children. Most of these children are descendants of mainland immigrants. Their fathers tried hard to build Dunhuang economy with tourism as the mainstay. Since the early 1980s, this desert town has been targeting tourists from all over the world and their wallets.

This is a picture from my special edition of Lost Hexi Corridor. Came to the ruins of Dunhuang ancient city on the outskirts of Dunhuang. There is no monument for people to mourn, only a group of children playing. I went to say hello to them, and they leaned in curiously to look at my camera. I shot from a lower angle, and a child ostentatiously jumped from one side of a major canal to the other. I knew it was a very convincing scene, so I increased the shutter speed and pressed the shutter when he jumped back into the air. Thus, a powerful picture of such a child jumping into the air is obtained, which vividly shows the theme of today's immigrants reoccupying Dunhuang.

Shooting running water

When shooting clear streams, waterfalls, rivers and other flowing water, in order to get the effect of flowing water, it is necessary to use a slow shutter speed, because if you use a high shutter speed to shoot, the water droplets and water flow in the picture will be condensed and cannot show the effect of flowing water. This is the most obvious difference when shooting waterfalls. Higher shutter speed can be used for the same angle, such as1125 seconds or higher; Then take a picture with a shutter speed of 1/60 seconds or less to see the effect. Many landscape photographers shoot waterfalls, streams and other landscapes with very low shutter speed, which will make the water flow produce a foggy and silky special effect. To take such photos, you need to use a tripod and a cable release device to stabilize the camera. If you use this technology when shooting people's activities, such as shooting people taking a shower, you should be careful not to use too low shutter speed. Too low shutter speed will blur people's movements and can't set off the fuzzy effect of water flow.

This photo was taken on Lake Bijola in Udaipur, Rajasthan, India. A teenager was bathed in the warm sunshine in the morning. He has been pouring a large glass of lake water from the beginning. This is a shock moment. I filmed this scene for 20 minutes and have been waiting for such a moment. In order to make the water column pouring down from the teenager's head feel flowing instead of instantly solidifying, I reduced the aperture to F 1 1 to obtain a lower shutter speed of 1/60s, so as to capture the dynamic effect of water flow in the picture. I used a wide-angle lens when composing the composition, and it was much better to put the main teenagers on one side of the picture than to put the teenagers in the center of the picture. I try my best to bring the surrounding environmental elements into the lens. Another teenager taking a bath in the lake and the teenager on the far right of the picture make the elements of the picture richer and make the picture more impactful.