Craft and Vision has released their latest ebook, called “Slow – the Magic of Long Exposure Photography” by Andrew S. Gibson. As you might guess this ebook is about long exposure photography. Mr. Gibson has authored several other ebooks that are available on the Craft and Vision web site. This book covers a lot of different techniques, shows examples and goes over the necessary gear and recommended camera settings. The sample images are quite well done and will serve to provide some creative inspiration for the reader to go out and try something new. Techniques covered include panning while exposing, and also what is known as In Camera Movement or ICM. ICM can look a lot like camera shake and while you experiment with this technique it can get frustrating but it is possible to create some very interesting images, it can be very artsy. Gibson also suggests checking out the ICM group on flickr, I also recommend that, if you scroll through some of the pages, there are some very, very creative images. There were some of some aspens in fall color that had a very painterly type quality, beautiful and impressionistic. None of these techniques are new, I first read about them in a book from Freeman Patterson called “Photography and the Art of Seeing” but it is nice to have a refresher.
Another chapter is devoted to using flash while doing your exposures, the flash is used to freeze the main subject, a person perhaps, while allowing the area that is not illuminated to be blurry or show motion. One of the examples is of a lady on a revolving carousel, and the background shows the motion in the background and the subject is frozen in time because she is illuminated by the flash. He explains the difference between first and second curtain sync.
Andrew also covers the more traditional long exposure images, from several seconds to minutes or even longer and generally using a tripod for support. He goes on to explain the advantages of neutral density filters and polarizers. In addition to the information and examples he also includes interviews with two other photographers who use long exposure photography but with very different styles, with examples of their work, so there is plenty of inspiration available.
This ebook is quite reasonable and is normally priced for $5, however, you can get it for $4 if you use the code “Slow4” when checking out from Craft And Vision. If you would like to get more than 1 ebook use the code “Slow20” for a 20% discount on 5 or more, both of these codes expire on November 18, 2012.
