Fun with motion blur

Shot this for a cover pic for a high school admissions kit I was designing...thoughts, comments, suggestions, as always welcomed.

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I like this picture..Great shot..
Capturing the student, and still keeping the "look" of the hustle and bustle of High School..

This is very appealing. The main subject emphasises students as individuals and the people behind give an impression of activity and purpose. Well done!

Thanks folks. I'm a huge sports fan and love shooting sports. And being a marketing director for a prep school has it's advantages - not only from a budgetary perspective - but also from a content perspective. There are always chances to shoot something creative (because I like doing it) but also knock something off that's work related. Getting paid for doing something I love doing is even better.

I used this shot as the center piece of the admissions kit...needless to say, it went over well.

Great shot!! What was the shutter speed of the shot? Just curious...

Keep up the great work!

- Joe

jledvina wrote:
Great shot!! What was the shutter speed of the shot? Just curious...

Keep up the great work!

- Joe

I honestly don't remember...I pulled this from some shots I took earlier in the year. I want to say I was about 1/15 or something slow enough to catch the blur, but not loose the "stillness" of the student in the middle. I had to take about 40 shots to get the one that I liked. I just kept moving the shutting speed lower and lower until I got a balance I liked. Available light helped.

Great shot. Shows a busy mood.

Wow! Great shot!

I like the shot, i am just wondering why the one person to the back left with their back to us does not seem to be blurred at all, is there a reason for it?

He was taking his time walking around. I told all the students to walk past the subject a few times at a brisk pace...this one student wasn't all that interested. Needless to say, we cropped him out of the shot for the admissions kit.

I agree. IMO, this was the one distracting element in an otherwise very interesting picture. Since you allow image editing, I hope you don't mind my revision.

Here's what I did: I used the lasso tool with a feathered edge and selected just the people in the background. Then I added a horizontal motion-blur in PhotoShop to make everyone but the main subject appear to be moving.

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Great stuff Kap...I know enough in CS2 to be dangerous, but not to make my photos better! I'm learning as I go. I know a lot of the short cut stuff, but something this I'm clueless. Thanks for the step by step. I'll give it a shot on the original...see what I can do.