Exercise 20: Busy traffic

This is the final project that I had to finish for People & Place. I had taken some photos in the train/bus station a few months ago for this but was not happy with them. So today I went to the local farmers market which I know is a busy place, and set up my tripod, camera and variable neutral density filter.

I stayed pretty much in one place, the corner of the market, and changed my view from there. I have been before to the market so I knew that this was a good spot to catch the crowds and also people lining up to pay or peruse goods. I chose to use my variable neutral density filter to enable me to get multi-second exposures which I thought would show the movement of the people nicely. It was also important to have some people 'still' in the image otherwise it was all ghostly people moving past. I have put 6 shots below, 3 from each rough viewpoint which show the movement of the crowd around the market.

Photo 1: 1/8 sec


Photo 2: 2 sec


Photo 3: 6 sec


Photo 4: 4 sec


Photo 5: 2 sec


Photo 6: 3 sec


I think these photos show the movement and flow of people, and they are interesting and colourful at the same time. I think this technique (previously I've only used neutral density filters to slow shutter speeds in landscape work) is a good one for showing the flow of people in broad daylight. Obviously a tripod is essential, and a cable release helps to stop any camera shake also.