Intentional Camera Movement Photography Magazine | Hacker News Reader

Intentional Camera Movement Photography Magazine

icmphotomag.com

108 pointsKaibeezy37 comments

I've used various techniques for slow sync flash throughout my photography career. Worked exceptionally well for stage photography, night-time events, electronica concerts, and the like. Slow sync flash is when you let ambient light expose the film or sensor for a while, before you freeze the scene by activating the flash late. It really takes "painting with light" to a new level, though it's of course not the only way to use intentional camera movement.

Nearly all my photographs from such events use some kind of intentional camera movement together with a delayed or early flash sync. Slow sync flash is a delightful technique that you can be really, really creative with. Try it with double exposures, for instance, or with weirdly synced monoblocs.

I've seen great photos taken of dancers and animals in movement done that way. Moreover, this technique (if you've got it buried in your camera settings somewhere), sets you free to really disregard some of the holy tenets of photography, which is to never, ever move the camera, ever. Nay, in fact it prompts you to be dynamic and jittery, to lounge forward into the music, and let the final image really SHOW how great that moment really was.

This is one of two ways to do this (as you know), called rear curtain sync (or the flash fires at the end of the exposure). You can also use front curtain sync, which fires at the start of the exposure, and get a slightly different effect.

For example, with a stationary camera and a galloping horse, front curtain sync would show a ghost of the horse running forward from its image, whereas rear curtain sync would show the ghost run towards the image (ie the horse would have a ghost "tail").

I’ve always preferred the results of first curtain flash as they seem to make more visual, and temporal, sense to me, IMAGE->trails, rather than trails->IMAGE.

I think it really depends on the subject and your own personal aesthetic. I prefer rear curtain, because it makes more sense to me that the moving object has a "tail", but it's too specific to the subject to really have a solid rule.

You are absolutely correct and my comment is exactly backward from my intended meaning.

Link to their Youtube channel, if you are interested in some of the artists's work: https://www.youtube.com/@ICMPhotoMag

Also, some street examples in B&W: http://www.alexeytitarenko.com/

Do you have examples of good images made this way available to the public? I've only ever seen it used sloppily with the intent of hiding bad composition using a fancy technical effect, so it'd be really nice to see something else!

Check this out https://images.saymedia-content.com/.image/t_share/MTc0MjgyM...

I assume one flash at the start and one at the end of movement

How do you know their intent? Composition is largely a matter of cropping if you already have the basics down. On top of that, what is perceived as "good" is often very subjective, especially within art. Personally my main intent for using the effect was the vivid colours and the interesting streaks and shadows they make in the final image, and not really to cover anything up. The effect brings a certain life to the photo that a regular still just can't present, especially considering how straight flash photography too often comes off as really dull when you are forced to use only the hotshoe. But there is far more risk involved when using the effect, because when you move the camera, you often cannot be certain of the end result. Even more so with concert photos. They are made in an often very chaotic environment where you have little control, and where you more than likely are shoved around by the crowd as well. The slow flash really accentuates that, and you have to hope your movement syncs up with whatever is happening on the stage or around you while the shutter is open, which can be for quite a while depending on your settings. But then for that reason I think it's the most rock 'n' roll way of taking pictures. On the flipside the images does come out as very stylized, which no doubt isn't everyone's cup of tea.

If anyone is confused by what this magazine is about, like I was, you can find a free issue here https://www.icmphotomag.com/free-sample-issue

Looks like an interesting concept!

In intentional camera movement (ICM), a camera is moved during the exposure for a creative or artistic effect. This causes the image points to move across the recording medium, producing an apparent streaking in the resulting image.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentional_camera_movement

Ahhh so this is different from camera movements [1] used in large format photography to manipulate the focal plane and achieve various effects. These movements take place only before the exposure, not during.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View_camera#Movements

Fairly common, also.

Consider panning, in sports photography, where you track a player in a field while the background blurs from side to side. Also in motor sports, some nature photography, or any time a photographer wants a motion effect, perhaps in street photography, or even snapshots at family events.

Edit: similar effect in travel photos, where someone shoots from a moving vehicle - far background might look fairly stable, near background (cyclists & vehicles) blur, people in your vehicle might be stable, depending on shutter speed and how much bouncing on the road.

One pretty easy (I didn't know the name at that time) example is, a still person in front of a moving train (at station for example). E.g. https://www.instagram.com/p/BPpyrCMhwN_/?igshid=NmE0MzVhZDY=

Though this is moving background, not moving camera.

The founder's personal site (https://stephjohnphoto.com) also has (many) examples of ICMP.

Yeah, I found that site much more interesting than the cover of the latest issue. My first thought was, “this looks terrible,” but after seeing her site, I quite like it.

This is neat. I accidentally took an image like this and used it as wallpaper for a while, but never considered trying to take more intentionally. Here's mine: https://photos.app.goo.gl/71Rdc5jKFd1FSS6A6

I was definitely confused! Their Instagram was also helpful for me to understand what kinds of images they had in mind: https://www.instagram.com/icmphotomag/

Wow, I'm a huge fan of taking these types of photo but never knew what they called until now. Here's one I have mounted under 1 inch acrylic and hanging on my wall: Night Time On The Estuary https://i.imgur.com/MLtm7dO.jpg

Crossing The Bridge: https://i.imgur.com/403oHiv.jpg

London Tour: https://i.imgur.com/2uwmseH.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/x4C0GSE.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/BmPd4bE.jpg

Tools like this are great when used sparingly and by people that know what they want to achieve. But in practice they are overused by people that use it as a gimmick to make otherwise boring photos more interesting. And most of the time they fail at that. There are a number of photographers that seem to believe that ICM is their ticked to money and fame and I wish them well but it doesn't do it for me. And there are a couple of really talented photographers that have used ICM a handful of times and those images stand out as highly original using ICM in unexpected ways. And in sports and nature photography (really, anything where the subject is moving fast and the camera is handheld or panning along with the subject) it is used simply to get the subject sharp and the background blurry.

I'm not saying this isn't a cool thing, maybe it is. But "Intentional Camera Movement" is an ambiguous phrase. It took me a bit to realize it's about moving cameras intentionally (ie, blurry photos). Not about being intentional with or about cameras as a social movement. hah

Maybe it's because English is not my first language, but I understood it as it's intended just by the name.

Native speaker, I got it the first time. I don't think that has anything to do with it, it's just fully ambiguous and your bias will determine which meaning you land on first.

FYI, f you look up camera toss photography you can see stuff that doesn’t really look ‘blurry’ at all. There are other techniques that result in ‘smearing’ but still retain a feel of nominal sharpness.

If you like this kind of photography, checkout @sallymason100 on instagram. She has some beautiful ICM work.

https://www.instagram.com/sallymason100/

Slightly disappointed...I read this as

International Camel Movement Photography Magazine

Now that would have been quirky and interesting...

I'm sure this is good, but still.

edit: I checked this out, and this is GREAT! It's beautiful. Especially the free sample issue^0 [pdf]

^0 = https://indd.adobe.com/view/15c9a7d1-1653-4baa-80ac-9e4c1fe7...

I was expecting tilt-shift photography from the title.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt–shift_photography

I took a look at the sample issue (see link in another response) and my first response was -- this will be wiped out so fast by generative AI image makers.

why does the submitted URL, which is essentially a static page, require running JavaScript from zenfolio.com to even display anything?

What I find hilarious is the About page doesn't even state what the acronym IS, let alone the definition. Absolutely bizarre.

At first, I thought the same thing too, but, to be fair, this is a site that clearly caters to people who are familiar with acronym and the associated activity. As such, it might not be a good candidate for posting here, and there is no reason why every site should be. In this case, the free sample issue of the magazine, linked to elsewhere in these comments by somethingsaid, would seem to be a better introduction.

In my experience here, people sometimes appreciate a bit of a puzzle and the opportunity for discovery, the results of which they then post in the comments. What topic fits that better than this form of blurry photography, where even the name is ambiguous?

Back when “camera phones” were just starting to take off, I used to love taking pictures like this with my LG VX5200.

It seemed to have a good mix of high sensitivity and slow image processing to get really interesting effects by spinning the phone in all different planes.

Not to be confused with camera movements

Any tutorials you'd recommend for learning how to take shots like these? Inspiring stuff.

wrapped.nil is the master at this https://www.instagram.com/wrapped.nil/

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