Thematic Photography: Blur

How does one purposely produce a blurry picture? At night, with little lighting, it is easy, because the camera wants to open the shutter for longer, allowing in more light. No one stays perfectly still at a party (this was taken at a Simchat Beit HaShoeva at my kids’ school), so I got lots of blurry pics.

In the middle of the day, however, it’s a bit harder. I set my camera to shutter speed priority, selected a slow setting so the shutter would stay open longer, and got the above photo.

Yesterday I took a photo of a bee on a mum that I love; however, that one blurred only the background. So this time I challenged myself to blur the main subject as well. I achieved the bee on mum with background blurred by setting the aperture as priority, sort of opposite of the technique the above photos.

For more blurry photos, see Carmi’s post on Thematic Photography 20 – Blur.