Taking inspiration directly from :
Muybridge’s experiments were followed in 1906 by AM Worthington’s (1852–1916) series of drops and splashes. The shot i aimed for was to capture water at the moment of entry of some object, say a stone.
Technical details:
I set my camera to shutter priority 1/1000s to capture sharply any motion in the water. I first set focus on the water, then set to manual focus to keep this setting. I set ISO to auto, my thinking being to let the camera choose a good balance between aperture and ISO. Given the fast shutter speed and cloudy conditions, aperture selected by the camera was wide open in any case. Finally I set the camera to multi-shot mode.
Secondly I wanted to capture, in sharp focus and with no blur, the impression of kinetic energy, motion.
Technical details:
Camera set to shutter priority 1/1000s, Aperture f5.6, auto ISO, continuous focus mode.
I selected continuous focus mode to maintain sharp focus whilst the subject could be moving unpredictably through the frame.
I was very fortunate to come across a local swan in full blown cleaning mode, i took a number of shots and selected the picture which for me gave the most clear impression of motion, whilst sharp and still
With some cropping and darkening of the surrounding area, this effect can be emphasised.
In both cases for the pictures above I consider the question :
Does the camera capture time in these images, or does it fragment it, as Szarkowski believed, isolating thin slices to reveal something new?
In both cases something new is revealed in my opinion.
In the case of the stone entering the water we know intuitively that a splash will occur but we are less able to conceive of the state of the water at the instant when the stone disrupts. This is made clear in shot 3 of the stone sequence above.
The swan is in mid clean and there is much disruption around her, again we understand this, we see the blur of activity on occassion if we are lucky enough to live close by, but we do not see the full clarity of this until we capture it in fragments.
This exercise reminded my of a shot i took a few years ago whilst on a weekend trip to Amsterdam. I went to the Ajax v PSV Eindhoven game and was fortunate enough to capture this image.
This is relevant to mention at this juncture as, until this exercise, my thoughts on application for shutter priority mode and very fast capture were limited to this sort of shot. It fits i think with the theme of the assignment for part 3 – the decisive moment.
DKL_OCA_ExpressingYourVision_LearningLog 
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