[ Techiman, Ghana ]

Lately I’ve been watching a LOT of photography videos. Most have been the usual fare: editing tips, exposure tips & gotchas for typical scenarios, printing considerations, where best to sell images online, that kind of thing.

Yesterday morning, however, I stumbled across a vlog entry discussing a technique called ICM, or Intentional Camera Movement. Likely this is old news to most photographers, but not to me. The basic idea is to move the camera around while the shutter is open, producing blurring, impressionistic images. With practice, you learn which movements produce which effects and can somewhat control the result.

From my oh-so-exhaustive research on the topic (a couple of hours surfing the web), it appears most practitioners focus on landscapes and other nature shots. Stalks of grass, a copse of trees, sunsets, mountains, coastlines: these are the most common subjects I found. Most go beyond impressionistic into the abstract.

In any case, I thought I’d give it a go. I wandered around the hotel for half an hour, shaking my camera at scrawny trees, drying laundry, junction boxes, random flora, and my beloved grain silos. Pulling those into an editor and experimenting with them was an enjoyable way to spend an afternoon. The results aren’t going to win any awards, but it was a great exercise, and gave me some ideas for things I might try “in the wild” later. Portraits and street photography could yield nice results, I think. We’ll see.

Until then, we’ll have to make do with multiple versions of the scrawny tree, drying laundry, and a couple of silo scenes. See what you think (and be kind: it’s my first attempt!).

—jim

PS

For the curious, the first link explains the technique somewhat. The second has some really nice examples of how it can be used.

http://blog.juliaannagospodarou.com/guide-icm-intentional-…/
http://www.erikmalm.com/fineart.htm