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The long exposure as a creative tool
As a professional photographer, I’m always exploring creative techniques and how they can be used to create impact in my images. One of my favorite techniques is to use a long exposure to deliberately convey motion by creating a distinct contrast between moving and static elements in a scene. As exposure time lengthens, moving objects are transformed from sharp, static subjects into soft, blurred ones. If you can identify the movement patterns and direction of dynamic elements in your scene, …
Oregon – Five “Before” and “After” Long Exposure Images
Editor’s note: We’ve been huge fans of Cole’s tremendous black & white work for years – and have often wondered what his images looked like out of the camera, before he applied his unique conversion and processing vision. So we were delighted when Cole sent us this post. I’ve had a number of people ask if I’d do some more “before” and “after” shots. So here are five from my recent Oregon trip. All are long exposures created with my …
Visiting NYC with Singh-Ray Mor-Slo ND filters to shoot very long exposures
Living in Colorado, I don’t always have opportunities to do urban photography, so when I get a chance to go back east, I always bring along my creative filters. When I was in New York City for the Photo Plus Expo, I brought my two newest filters, the Singh-Ray 5-stop and 10-stop Mor-Slo filters. The image above is a good example of how these filters let me capture very long exposures even in broad daylight. Singh-Ray Mor-Slo filters are a …
Explaining how to determine correct exposures for long exposure images
An acknowledged master of long-exposure photography, Cole Thompson shares his techniques for finding his “correct” exposure, and extrapolating that to dramatically longer exposure times. Getting the correct exposure when using one or more neutral density filters can be challenging. I use up to 18 stops of ND with exposures ranging from 30 seconds to 8 minutes. At first finding the correct exposure was very frustrating and my images were often underexposed and I’d have to resort to guessing at the …
How super-simple it is to create extremely-long exposures with the new 10-Stop Mor-Slo ND filter
There have been so many times when I’ve found myself at an impressive river scene or rocky coast line with the mid-day sun beaming straight down. Very bright light creates a challenge for me since I like to shoot rivers, streams, water falls, and seashore surf at very slow shutter speeds to get that soft-silky look to the moving water. In such situations, I like to expose my image for 10 seconds or longer. But even if I set my …
How to use long exposures to create mystical black and white images
I have always been intrigued by monoliths, first by the statues on Easter Island, then by the monolith in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey and most recently by Stonehenge in England. In each case, seeing these monoliths prompts the question; Who built them and for what purpose? I’ve always loved visiting Bandon Beach in Oregon because of the natural monoliths strewn along the coastline. Randomly placed, it is as though the earth were God’s chessboard and the monoliths the …
Sharing some of my latest long-exposure images from recent trips
Since my last post, I have been on a number of trips and thought I’d share some images from them. Each of these long exposure images has something in common, the Singh-Ray Vari-ND and the Mor-Slo 5-Stop ND Filter. I was in the Sierras to attend the memorial of an old friend and mentor when I created this image. John was on my mind as I spent several days reminiscing about our times together and missing him. He loved the …
Tony Sweet finds Singh-Ray’s 10-Stop Mor-Slo filter delivers long-exposures without all the clean-up
There is an obvious color cast — mostly strong magenta — that can sometimes be dramatic and nice, and at other times dramatic and problematic. Rather than taking time to color correct such images on the computer, which can be quite time consuming with less than acceptable results, I’ve opted more often to converting the image to black and white, which works to my satisfaction much of the time. But, what if color is the reason for making the image? …
New creative interpretations with slower exposure times
As the digital era has evolved and cameras are ubiquitous, there are more and more images of literally everything, to the point that sometimes people wonder if it’s possible to make a photograph that’s original. One of the reasons that I enjoy using Singh-Ray filters, such as the Mor-Slos and the Vari-ND is that I can transform what I see in front of me into my interpretation of it, rather than just a documentary-style image, while maintaining the highest possible …