NYC Photo Walk Impressions

From November 10-13, 2012, I was in New York for the NYC Photo Walk, filming some behind the scenes impressions. This is a short video I edited together from that material.

During those 4 days, a lot of us were doing long exposure photography, a genre that not only captures a much longer time span than regular photography, smoothing out any fast motion into something more ethereal, but also forces the photographer to work more slowly and mindfully, given the amount of time each shot takes. Even though NYC can be very hectic, I wanted this video to reflect this slowing down of time. In a few shots I also experimented with a new technique which I call "long exposure slow motion".

I decided not to take a tripod along on this trip, which at first may seem somewhat limiting, given that it's quite hard to get steady footage when filming hand held with a DSLR. In retrospect however, I think many of the shots I got are way more dynamic than if I had used a tripod. With a little bit of practice and, where necessary, a bit of stabilization on post, it's surprising what kind of hand-held camera moves you can get away with.

A long shot

On July 7 and 8 I had the pleasure of attending the Fine Art Long Exposure Photography workshop organized by Marc Koegel and Joel Tjintjelaar in Domburg, The Netherlands. I was shooting some behind-the-scenes footage, and the (very) short film above was created from some of those shots.

My goal was to give the various shots a look that you would normally only get from a long exposure photograph, but in motion. If you have been following this blog, you know that I’ve been experimenting with this technique for a while. If you’re interested, read on for a little explanation of how these shots were created.

Click to read more ...

Behind the scenes with Joel Tjintjelaar

A few blog posts ago I wrote about the work of photographer Joel Tjintjelaar. This is a short impression that I shot of Joel at work, creating some long exposure images in Rotterdam. Since he is mostly known for his long exposure black & white photography, I wanted to create that same look & feel and capture some more long exposure video shots, similar to what I did in my previous video.

Unlike those previous shots however, I didn't shoot a RAW timelapse, but simply recorded some long video shots to make the process quicker. That, in combination with the fact that there wasn't too much contrast in the clouds, made the effect less dramatic in most of the shots, but a couple turned out somewhat usable.

You can find out more about Joel Tjintjelaar and his work on bwvision.com