A couple weeks ago, another student in my class was going through their photographs that they had taken during the week. They had made a comment how their pictures were out of focus and blurred, and thought to discard them as they considered the photos no longer acceptable. Our professor brought up the point that just because the photo maybe out of focus or blurred, doesn’t necessarily make it a bad photo.

One particular form of photography that demonstrates this is action shots, or photography that shows movement. With action shots, having a blurred or out of focus subject can enhance the photograph. There are three different kinds of action shots, two out of the three being more relevant to our topic, but I will review them all.

Motion Blur

The first is motion blur. This form purposefully blurs any movement within the shot. This is achieved through a slow shutter speed, allowing for the motion to be captured in a blurred effect.

While the bus is at a stand still, we can see the motion in the girl jogging because of her blurred quality.

Panning

The second is panning. This particular method allows for the moving object to stay in focus while the rest of the photograph is blurred out. In order to accomplish this, the photographer follows the movement with their camera while in the process of taking the photo. Like motion blur, this technique requires a slow shutter speed.

The rest of the background is blurred out as the camera follows the moped as it drives by.

Stop Action

The third is stop action. This type of photography freezes the motion, keeping everything in focus. Depending of how fast the subject is moving, the shutter speed will increase.

The shutter speed is increased to a point where any blurred movement within the bike freezes and gives the impression the biker isn’t moving.

Both motion blur and panning require some sort of blur or out of focus aspect to convey the movement. Without it, the photographs wouldn’t be nearly as interesting and would be lacking, proving that blurred or out of focus photographs are not all bad.

Featured Image: https://www.pexels.com/photo/art-clear-close-up-dark-461929/