Creating a pleasing blur can be difficult if you have not practiced your technique. Blurs are a form of art and are very subjective. Some people absolutely hate them and others adore them. I am one of the folks that loves them.

Below is an excerpt form my eBook “A Guide to Creative Blurs”. This is my second eBook on the subject of capturing in-camera blurs. It is available only through A Creative Adventure HERE. In addition to capturing in-camera blurs, I cover some Photoshop blurs and effects as well.

I used a slight circular movement to create this blur of a field of dahlias.

A few factors that influence the degree of blurring. You will have more control over some than others.

· The shutter speed: the slower the shutter speed, the greater the degree of blurring. I consider 1/30 second the start of blurring shutter speed. In other words, if you reduce your shutter speed to 1/30 of a second and if there is camera or subject movement, there is a good chance that you will have some degree of blurring in your image.

· The speed that the camera is moved: the faster the camera is moved, the greater the degree of blurring.

· The speed that the subject is moving: the faster the subject is moving, the greater the degree of blurring. (Note: as long as the camera is held still during the exposure, so if you are panning with your subject, that will affect the degree of blur on your subject.)

· The angle relative to the camera’s sensor in which the subject is moving: the closer to parallel to the camera’s sensor the subject is moving, the greater the degree of blurring. In other words, if the subject, let’s say a bird, is flying parallel to the camera’s sensor, it will appear more blurred than a bird flying straight at you.

· The distance to the subject: the closer the subject is to you, the greater the degree of blurring.

Another thing to consider is that the background can also affect the degree in which we perceive an image to be blurred. If the background is a solid blue sky, there will be nothing in the background to show the motion or movement of the blur.

This blur was captured in Bosque many years ago at one of the crane pools. I loved the dark top area and the grasses in the foreground.

This is an older image of an in-camera blur that I applied a painterly effect to.

The sunflower image shown above was captured at a sunflower field in Provence France. There is something wonderful about a field of flowers. The sheer number of flowers to choose from can be overwhelming—but in a good way. I shot some images of the entire field but wanted to go a bit beyond the usual shot.

I like the Multiple Exposure feature that some cameras have, however, my Sony a1 does not have multiple exposures. So, the work around I used, is to take two separate images and merge them in Photoshop. The first shot I captured was an in-camera motion blur @1/8 seconds, handheld, natural light. The second image I captured was framed very similarly but for this one I took a very sharp image using a tripod with a reflector. In Photoshop, I overlaid the sharp image on top of the soft pleasing blur. I used a layer mask and the blend modes in Photoshop to apply sharpness in selective areas. The blur shot could have stood on its own, but by adding some sharpness to it in selective areas, I felt the photo had more impact.

*The above sunflower description is from my eBook- “Connecting with Nature”.