For Tuesday’s Photography Club meeting, I’ll be honest.. I felt like I was running out of fun ideas for activities. I have a history with open shutter images. I have been in love with them since I took my first a year or so back. I introduced the technique to Photo Club while I was still its Treasurer and during that meeting, it was when me and the new Executive Board really bonded for the first time, I’d say. We have been a close club since and I owe it to our common love for Photography and this technique especially.

I like quite a bit about this technique outside of this little story. Every image will be different when viewed in a different camera. If you are holding the camera instead of using a tripod, sometimes the shakiness from the camera being held ends up adding a different, unexpected twist to the photo. The images can be taken anywhere, as long as you have a dark space. The photo is a surprise, because the light is moving and you’ll never know how it turns out till the shutter closes after the span of time it is open. You can spell things..draw things.. you name it. All you need is a DSLR Camera and some light source, whether it be an iPhone flashlight, actual flashlight, glow stick, or even a sparkler. Open Shutter might be one of the coolest DSLR features. For those who say the iPhone cameras are better now, I ask you to try this on your camera. Can’t do it? I thought so. Personal opinion, but photography quality, although improving on cellular devices, will never amount to that of a camera. One day,  I’ll be that old hag taking pictures using my DSLR and my grandkids and children will ask what it is.

Back to the photography from my last session. I saw something similar to the image below on interest. It was a stick figure, built by using open shutter and a sparkler, sitting on a  bench outside. We tried to recreate the image using a glow stick and a chair and let me tell you, it took several tries, but the outcome turned out pretty cool! Our Photography Club mascot, everyone! Credit to Keyonah for being the one to draw our new friend with the glow stick.

Below, we wrote “photograph”/”photography” in the air. Notice how they get progressively better. I credit Nadya for her beautiful cursive and for figuring that technique (tracing the pre-written word on the white board).

I really love the way the light reflects in this photos. It reminds me of The 1975’s album cover. Please tell me you see it too with the color scheme and the way the light glows/ reflects off the desks.

Below, we took pictures of everyone’s name who was with us in the room (with exception of the students the left early or wandered off outside to take photos). Even more credit to Nadya for her amazing cursive and patience with us taking these photos.

Being the considerate President I am, I waited until everyone’s name was done, before I requested we do mine. My camera started acting up with my name; of course it did. Cameras have souls, I swear.

We played some more with open shutter and I got this image of Mark. It looks pretty extraterrestrial in my opinion. He looks like he is being abducted. I was trying to get a halo effect, but of course it ends up looking more disturbing. Eh, no worries. I wouldn’t have wanted this photo to turn out any other way.

Here’s a better representation of what the halo effect does. This one lightens up Mark’s frame nicely. I moved to make this a little distorted, but I feel like that makes this photo more interesting.

We had the lamp below once again. I took a few shots, but I’d have to say I like this one the most out of those. Not my favorite of the session, but I thought it would be worth including in this post.

This was a quick post. I hope you enjoyed these shots! If you have any questions about open shutter or what I’ve been able to do with open shutter, please feel welcome to reach out via my Contact Form.