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What's the correct term...

edited May 2017 in Writing
for a photo of something moving where you just see smears of colour?

Comments

  • You want something fancier and more apt than 'blur'?
  • Abstract, if it's deliberate, a smudge if not?
  • Yes, something more than 'smudge' or 'blur' - more of a technical term to do with speed or exposure.
  • PM will know.
  • It's called smearing if the subject is blurred, done with a timed exposure, so that one part is sharp and the rest blurred as in a landscape with the water blurred into motion. Usually, one part of the photo is sharp as you are trying to create the illusion of movement in one part of the photo. If all the photo is smeared, probably smeared, but if this is a person talking about a photo that is blurred because they moved when it was taken or everything else moved when it was taken, by accident, I think you would blurred!
  • (I did three years of photography and television and film at film school...)
  • Mr PM says he'd call it a slow shutter image.
  • But technically, then, if everything was still, the photo would not be blurred. Everything would have to be moving across the slow shutter to make it all blurred.
  • If the photographer moved it would be blurred.
  • edited May 2017
    But technically, then, if everything was still, the photo would not be blurred. Everything would have to be moving across the slow shutter to make it all blurred.
    The same is true of a long exposure.

    TN asked for the term "for a photo of something moving ".


  • Oh, yes, I meant if she was writing it - you couldn't just say a slow shutter image (or long/timed exposure) without mentioning the movement. It depends on the situation as to whether it matters if it was the subject or photographer moving.
  • I think I might take a photo of my kids on a moving carousel this week. If I generate an effect on the image I will know what it's called -- all thanks to TN. :D
  • Thank you, all.

    I needed it for a poem, but in the end decided against using a technical term. They're not always that beautiful, are they?

    Anyway, after a couple of days of adjusting with my literary spanner, the poem is now complete.
  • Yes, it's really hard being precise sometimes without the technical term, but i usually explain as poetically as possible without it, too!
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