long exposure

One Windy Morning /  by Todd Henson

Looking Back Along the Abandoned Rails

I woke early one late June morning while on vacation with my father in New Hampshire. I wandered out behind the inn we were staying at to find this lovely little scene with a range of wildflowers and grass around a large boulder in the foreground and set against a wooded background. It was a very windy morning which made photography a challenge. But I decided to embrace the wind and intentionally included evidence of it within this image.

Processing the Image

Initially I tried using a fast enough shutter speed to still as much of the wind-induced motion as I could, given the low light of early morning. That resulted in the photo below, which was made with a shutter speed of 0.4 seconds. There is still some motion blur, but it’s at a minimum.

A 0.4 second exposure to try to minimize blur caused by the wind.

That’s when I decided to fully embrace the wind, so I set my camera with a shutter speed of 63 seconds and created the photo below which is full of motion blur both with the trees in the background and with the flowers and grass in the foreground. There is also a touch of blur to the boulder, not because the wind affected it at all, but likely because even on a sturdy tripod the wind was able to vibrate my camera just a bit.

A 63 second exposure to embrace motion blur caused by the wind.

When I recently began processing these photos I decided to combine them, keeping the long exposure motion blur on the background trees and grass, but showing the shorter exposure and slightly more crisp foreground of flowers and boulder, resulting in the first photo up top.

Which of the three images do you prefer?

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Make Time For Playtime /  by Todd Henson

They’re Here!

Putting a lot of serious effort into crafting intentional and meaningful photographs is a worthy pursuit. But sometimes it’s a good idea to just relax a bit, to let go, have a little fun. Make time for playtime.

A shaky drive down 95

The photos in this post may not be spectacular in any way. But they’re an example of not taking what I’m doing too seriously, of just experimenting a little, having fun, trying things I doubt will work and sometimes realizing I’m right but still trying it anyway.

Being light painted by passing cars

Stitches in the sky

Specifically, each photo is part of a drive south on Interstate 95 after dark (yes, I was a passenger, not a driver). They are each from a phone using an app that allowed for longer exposures, most between half to a full second. Then I moved the phone/camera around during the exposure. Because of this each photo will be unique and unlikely to be duplicated (of course the question stands whether anyone would ever want to duplicate them! 😅)

The glow below the overpass

Though it was almost 13 years ago I still fondly remember creating these that night. And I still wonder what some of the people in nearby cars thought of the crazy guy moving his phone all around as he drove by? Or were they too absorbed in their own phones to notice? 😊

Ribbons of light

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Canal Falls /  by Todd Henson

Canal Falls

I was introduced to this scene by a friend many years back. It’s located along a canal and shows the falls between two levels. The key to this photograph was the long exposure, 15 seconds in this case. It allowed the water to blur, giving it that nice milky look as it goes over the rocks. It also lets the water at the bottom begin to swirl and flow into a circular pattern.

Ideally I would have liked more of the swirling water at the bottom, but on this day there was a lot of very slow moving foam just out of view that didn’t look very appealing, so I framed the image without it. Perhaps a slower shutter speed could have blurred the foam enough to include it, but I didn’t have a neutral density filter with me that day. I achieved the 15 second shutter speed by setting my ISO to the lowest setting (ISO 200) and closing down the aperture all the way (f/36). Thankfully it was an overcast day so I didn’t have to worry about harsh sunlight creating extreme contrast or blowing out the highlights in the water.

I’m thankful to my friend for showing me this peaceful and beautiful location that I might have otherwise overlooked.

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