For a very long time I’ve been wondering why I like to use long shutter speeds with moving water. I’ve just always liked it, from the very beginning of my photography career – it was the reason I bought my first polariser filter and I still remember the first waterfall I used it on. In the last few days I’ve been thinking about this issue, inspired by the comments for my Sunday’s post and also Miika’s waterfall post when I was writing a comment for it. Then it suddenly dawned on me and it was so obvious I can’t believe I wasn’t able to figure out a long time ago! It all comes down to my concept of ”quiet picture”.
I strive to achieve harmony in my pictures (the operative word being ”strive”). Ideally, everything is in balance – if something is out of place, it will stick out and disturb, be it an element that doesn’t belong, bad composition, highlight or whatever. A balanced picture is thus quiet and the less elements you have in a picture, the quieter it usually becomes. Using shallow DOF in macro photography is a way to eliminate elements in the picture. A long shutter speed achieves the same thing in landscape photography. I use a long shutter speed even when the analytical part of my brain says that a shorter speed would be more appropriate, the picture on the left is definitely such where I recognise that freezing the water would probably work better. But now that I know why I’m using a long shutter speed, I no longer have to worry about the ”right” speed to use. The right exposure is the one that comes naturally to me!
