Photography tutorial: Shooting moving objects

For this blog post, Alan Bohms shares some invaluable tips on how to photograph moving objects.

According to Alan Bohms, knowing the three types of movement will help people understand the approaches required to get the desired result.

The first type is suspended movement, which captures a subject mid-way into action; for example, arms flailing, waves crashing, and dust kicking. The second is motion blur, which can give an appearance of dynamic energy. The third type of movement is visual flow, pointing to a subject's meandering and graceful appearance. Photographic composition helps achieve this effect.

2. Learn how to use long exposure.

Use a slower shutter speed when you want to show action. Alan Bohms mentions that some photography experts caution about shooting the frame too slow, that when taking a picture of a person walking out of a doorway, the person is likely to appear as a ghostly figure, a blurred one.

To solve this, use a tripod and shoot at 1/2oth of a second, which will result in a more detailed subject -- their traditional clothing, the hair color. Try this to achieve the suspended movement and the motion blur photographs and see what happens.

3. Develop panning skills.

While the subject is sharper than the background, which is usually blurred, the panning technique is most likely employed to show a sense of motion. This technique won't need a tripod, but it depends highly on the camera's shutter speed between a 1/30th and a 1/8th of a second.

Alan Bohms says that photographers can try this on moving objects like a passing train, cars hurrying on a busy intersection after the signal turned green, or a child chasing a butterfly.