Inspiration: Francesca Woodman
In the lesson today, we experimented with different shutter speeds, how to use them and two they alter your images.
Shutter speed is the time for which a shutter is open at a given setting on a camera.
- If you’re using a slow shutter speed (anything slower than 1/60) you will need to either use a tripod.
- Shutter speed is measured in seconds – or in most cases fractions of seconds. The bigger the number the faster the speed (i.e. 1/1000 is much faster than 1/30).
- When considering what shutter speed to use in an image you should always ask yourself whether anything in your scene is moving.
In today’s lesson we experimented with different shutter speeds with a deliberately moving object. I used Matt, my model to help me experiment with different shutter speeds. I told him to walk across a corridor several times to enable me to capture lots and lots of different frames of movement. I attempted to cause blur by using slow shutter speeds – this made the shutter close in the chosen time – I experimented with 2 seconds and in my opinion, this worked really well! I believe the last 8 or so worked out the best.
I tried to pair shutter speed and ISO together so they complemented each other and balanced each other out. However, in some images, the quality was quite grainy. This is why the I chose the last 5 or so as my favourites because they are the most clear.
Also, to enhance the quality of my photographs, I used a tripod to stabilize the camera when taking the pictures and this was the first time I had used a tripod. If I was to try out shutter speed again, I would definitely use a tripod again as this really aided the outcome.
