Bonus Assignment, Week 3: Creative Camera Shake
In addition to the regular assignment, I've decided to add in an optional "bonus assignment". What is a bonus assignment? So far we've been focusing a lot on developing a strong technical background, and that's the philosophy behind this course - with a strong foundation in the technology and operation of a camera, you can then apply that to actual photography and produce better pictures. While we've learned a lot of background, we haven't had a real chance to apply any of what we've learned. The bonus assignment is exactly that - a fun, creative assignment that allows you to apply the technical concepts you've learned to real-life photography, and in the process further your understanding of those technical concepts as well. That's the concept, anyhow, so we'll see how well this works out for the class.
This week's bonus assignment is a bit of a riddle. In class today we did a lot of demonstration on how we got blur in our images, due to shake speed, shutter time, and angle of view. In all the cases, blur turned our images into a mess. The photo to the right is an example of fairly extreme blur. Yet, it isn't random, and it doesn't turn the image into a mess.
Here's another example below:
The original, non-blurry image is to the left. The blurred version is to the right. Same concept - rather than random blur, we have intentional, controlled blur. The question is, how did I do this?
Step 1: Figure out how to control blur, and replicate the images above
Once you've figured out how to achieve the two images above, you can start getting more creative.
Step 2: Get creative and make controlled-blur shots of your own
Keep in mind you're really not limited to just spelling words out...
Assignment Summary:
- Figure out how to achieve the effects in the first few images.
- Try to replicate the images above
- Experiment with controlled blurring of your own
- Helpful tips
- Use a long shutter speed. Something like 10 seconds works well.
- Take pictures of scenes that are very dark, but with a single bright feature (question: why won't this work if we take pictures in a bright scene?)
- If your camera has a BULB exposure mode, use it
- A tripod may or may not help
- Send all images to me at nathanyan@berkeley.edu
- Do NOT use flash