Flowers all a Flutter

This is ICM (intentional camera movement) image, where I made a few U-shaped movements with the camera during exposure. It’s hard to predict how these will turn out. But I was relatively pleased with this outcome, and wanted to see what others think of it. I took this handheld at an exposure of 1/13 of a second. Generally shutter speeds in the 1/8 to 1/5 second range usally produce decent results for this ICM work. I took this at the formal gardens of the state horticultural society, I usually try to visit this location 2 or 3 times a summer to create ICM images like this.

What artistic feedback would you like if any?

Any critique and comments are welcome…

You may only download this image to demonstrate post-processing techniques.
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Love it Ed! Well done. The shutter speed to my eye is just perfect, making the arc of the flowers symmetric and emphasizing very nicely the petal arrangement. The “direction” of the arc is pleasingly perpendicular to the flow of the flowers from LRC to ULC. I wonder how the visual flow would change if you horizontally inverted the image? Because this is an exercise in abstract shapes, the color difference in the foliage in the URC serves as a distraction to my (way too picky) eye…and I would feel compelled to color clone this area. Great shot and thanks for sharing!

Ed

Very nice abstraction - very creative! Love it!

What a great ICM shot, Ed! I wish I had thought of doing that at the Botanical Gardens Wednesday when I was there. May have to give it a whirl out here in my flower garden. Very nicely done.

Ed, this image is quite interesting and it holds my attention to give me time to really study the movement and flow you created. I also think the sense of depth is really nice and not something that typically stands out in an abstract.
I like the creativity!

@Alan_Kreyger @Shirley_Freeman @Jim_McGovern @Kathy_Snead Thank you all for stopping by to take a look and for your comments. Every so often I get in a mood to try this type of image, with flowers being a particular favorite subject for this. I especially like that no two of them ever look the same, but with a lot of practice you can sort of predict the direction of the outcome. Still there are lots of “deletes” involved in this type of work.

2 Likes

Ed: I love doing this kind of stuff where you don’t know how it will turn out until the image is captured. I used to do this with film and you never knew how it would come out. I really like the color palette and sense of movement. Wonderfully conceived and executed. :+1::+1:>=))>

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Sweet ICM, Ed! The color palette is gorgeous and I love the sense of movement in the image. It almost looks as though the flowers are fluttering through the air. There may be a lot of throwaways, but the ones that work are magic. I keep meaning to get back up to Longwood Gardens in PA; maybe this will be the incentive to get there. Beautifully done.

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Ed, been meaning to comment on this when I first looked, just never got around to it. I love the arc method you used. It almost seems to emulate the odd sweept effect on helicopter blades (rotary shutter), except that’s bizarre whereas your subjects are elegant beauties. Very colorful and creative. I MUST try some myself. Almost a genre of itsslf.

Ed, this is totally my cup of tea. Well executed, nice resulting image!
Grt, Ingrid.

@Bill_Fach @Bill_Leggett @Ingrid_Vekemans @Ed_Lowe thank you all for taking a look and leaving a comment, I appreciate your input.

@Bill_Leggett it does seem to mimic the look of helicopter blades. Sometimes thees ICMs create an almost stroboscopic effect. When I do these, I might go for a couple hours and shoot a hundred images and only keep 3 or 4. But sometimes you get stuff like this…

Ed @Ed_McGuirk, this is a lovely flower ICM. I really enjoy the colors, texture, and movement in this. :slight_smile: I also am glad to see this kind of creative work, and the technique really encourages the viewer to see more the essence of the flowers than their literal form. Nice capture. :slight_smile:

I also wanted to comment on your response where you say:

This really is the key with ICM work…it requires lots of practice to really master, develop, and create aesthetically pleasing results. I think a lot of people think it’s easy, but it really isn’t as easy as it might seem…especially to do it well.

In my own experience, I go out with the specific intent to shoot only ICMs pretty much exclusively these days. I generally will take 200+ frames at a minimum, and sometimes well over 500 if I’m out for two or three hours. Of those hundreds of frames, I usually will tag the best ones in Lightroom before doing any edits, and out of a couple hundred frames, I may only tag about a quarter of them as being worth looking at further for processing.

It may seem excessive to shoot that many frames, but it has really been in doing this very intentional work that I’ve been able to produce consistent results with my ICMs, and also it has been the only way I could have possibly honed a technique that works for me to produce those consistent results. And, like you said, because I’ve done it so prolifically, I can go out and fairly well predict the results and I can create more from a vision, rather than by default…if that makes sense. :slight_smile:

Anyway, thanks for sharing. I look forward to seeing more of your ICM work.

Well done! Definitely makes for a unique and interesting presentation. Really like the colors in this as well. Everything is working together nicely here.