The images I’m going to talk about for today’s post on techniques used for the upcoming new book may look similar to the first post in this series. In that post I covered multiple firings of the flash in a single long exposure.

As I mentioned there, the ambient light (or the light from the modelling lights in the strobes) can illuminate enough to give a bit of a blur. In these images, there is no strobe, it’s just a long exposure and a constant light source.

But, as you hopefully notice, the image contains some identifiable poses, and is not just a continuous blur. Those identifiable poses are captured when the model holds the pose for a brief instant during the exposure.

Shooting the above image might goes something like this:
1) Model begins in starting position
2) I start the exposure
3) Model continues to hold pose for a half second or second
4) Model moves to second pose, then holds it for a half second or second
5) Model moves to third pose, then holds it
6) Exposure ends

Timing the exposure can be done using either a bulb and manually controlling it, or by using the a set longer exposure for however long the movements take.

The longer a pose is held, the more clearly it will show. The shapes aren’t frozen quite as clearly as using the strobe technique, but that blur can add to the feeling of motion. The blur between poses is much stronger using this technique.

Usually these take a bit of trail-and-error to set up, and much like the shots in the first post, the work is in finding a balance between the length of the exposure needed for the movement, and the aperture to go with the amount of light.

And in pretty much all these shots — more so than the other types, I think — the model’s timing of movement is critical. This is where working with a number of awesome models with some impressive dance experience made my job pretty easy.

In tomorrow’s post, I’ll talk about a really neat twist you can add to this technique.