I led a workshop in Toronto not too long ago and I’ll be sharing a series of posts breaking down some different locations from that weekend. I’ll start things off with a fun technique we teach but often forget to do while out shooting, intentional camera movement! This can be done many ways…zooming your lens during a long exposure, focus pulling, panning, etc. If you want more tips on this head over the post I wrote on Photography Unfolded covering this topic.
Since I’m forgetful, luckily one of our students was sharing some great shots he was getting incorporating this technique. We instructors learn from our students too!
This can be done on abstracts and cityscapes equally as well. On the first night, we were shooting cityscapes from the Toronto Islands. While I made some straight cityscape shots…

I also had a little fun zooming my lens during a long exposure. Done while on a tripod, which results in straight lines instead of squiggly ones.

In more abstract ways, I did a little vertical panning of this Chihuly sculpture in the Allen Lambert Galleria.

Fun, right?!
Back to the zooming during a bit of a longer exposure, this time handheld and of the Santiago Calatrava-designed Galleria.

Another cityscape but this time I played with focus pulling, which means changing your focus during the long exposure.

Just having a little fun and trying something different. And a big thanks to that special student for the reminder 😉