Photographing Motion

Photographing Vehicles in motion

In 2012 I spent a year photographing British motor racing, and for me as a photographer photographing fast moving vehicles was a new experience. I had to develop the skills required to capture images of the cars, truck or bikes on the track fast.


So what do we mean by motion photography. The reason why I’m discussing this particular theme/subject is because it was a theme given to Jiayin on her A level course. So this meant I took her out to practice photographing moving cars as an example of capturing motion. I decided to take to a round about near where we live, as the cars would be moving slower whilst she practiced panning and keeping the cars in frame. At first she like myself when I started photographing fast moving cars, difficult but soon got the hang of it.

Taken on a roundabout

Taken on a roundabout

Now this isn’t the only way to capture motion, you photograph any fast moving object. You could use a fast shutter speed and a flash to capture to motion, or a slower shutter speed capturing the blur of movement.

MG racing at Brands Hatch

MG racing at Brands Hatch

So there two basic ways to show motion or movement, these are a blurred subject with the background in focus or a blurred background with the subject in focus. Both convey the idea of fast movement, an object in motion. Yet both require different techniques to capture the image.

Carfest 2012

Carfest 2012

The second technique to keep the object in focus and blur the background. This particular technique is heavily used when photographing motor racing. As with the first technique we use a slow shutter speed but this time we pan with the camera (moving left to right or vice versa) following the object, keeping it in the frame at all time. This takes practice to get it right, but the finished results are great.

Brands Hatch

Brands Hatch

There are other techniques you can use to show a sense of movement besides the two described above. One of which is to use continuous shooting mode and capture a sequence of images. Then using photo editing software to join them together in one image displaying the sequence. Flash photography can be used to capture movement, and it can be used to great effect in the studio, capturing a single second of movement.

TN Racing

TN Racing

Finally you can also use photo editing software to cheat and fake a sense of motion and high speed, such as the example above.

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