How To

Fun with blur

There are all sorts of blurring effects you can create, either when you take photos (when they can be intentional or not — but hey, sometimes they’re happy accidents) or after the fact, in processing. When you press the shutter, you can create movement blur or zoom blur. Or you can take a perfectly normal photo and blur it in Photoshop, which can also make it look amazing. Here are a few examples.

This one’s rotational blur, done by slightly overexposing to get a longer shutter time and rotating the camera on the X axis (the line of the long corridor).

This one’s zoom blur, which is where you pull the zoom in or out really fast while pressing the shutter. Zoom blur is fun!

This one’s what I call directional blur (I don’t know the official name for it, if there is one). Move the camera forward while the shutter button is pressed.

And finally, this blur is done in Photoshop. It’s a movement blur to make it seem as if the wall shadows are growing.

Have fun!

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Thoughts

Fun with everyday objects

Continuing along the same lines as my previous post, you can have lots of photographic fun with everyday objects you’ll find in your kitchen or your living room. You just have to slightly re-imagine them in a different light or a different angle. Here are a few photos that do just that.

 

A simple round ceiling lamp can be reimagined like this, emphasizing its glow by overexposing it and vignetting the corners.

Even something as banal as a furniture surface or a carpet can be photographed in such a way that it would make for an interesting desktop wallpaper.

I hope you’ll take a bit of time to experiment and have some fun with your cameras!

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Thoughts

What can you do with corners?

Say you’re stuck inside but you’d love to use your camera and take some creative photos. What can you do? How about a play on lines and colors? You can use your very own walls and corners, and then you can manipulate the photos in editing to make them even more interesting. It’s a wonderful exercise in creativity. Here are some photos I took at home one evening, where I did this very thing.

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Places

At the Chevy Chase Village Circle

There are a couple of old churches at the Chevy Chase Village Circle, in the DC area. One is Presbyterian and the other is Catholic. Here are several photos I took of them, back in 2007.

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Places

On 17th St NW in DC

Here are a few photos taken on a DC street you may not know by name, but you may recognize once you see the photos (hint: it passes by the White House).

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