I am simply stunned by William Neil’s “Impressions of Light” portfolio, a series of beautifully impressionistic images that Neil creates by moving the camera during a long exposure. (Outdoor Photographer article here.) You owe it to yourself to take a look. (If you don’t have time to browse the whole collection, here’s a favorite example from Neil’s Photo Blog.) The textures, colors, and sense of space in these images are fantastic.
I am sufficiently impressed by the Impressions of Light to try my own hand at images in that style, though hopefully different enough from Neil’s to move beyond mere imitation. Here are a couple of my initial efforts, all shot from my office window. (Here we come to an important difference between Neil and me. He spends his days photographing in Yosemite. I spend mine in a skyscraper looking out the window. Go figure.)
This is a motion blur of an interesting banded cloud formation. The light turquoise color of the sky was striking, and I tried to make it the focal point of the image:
Here is a blur of lower downtown Denver. I tried to leave just enough detail for the viewer to understand that this is an image of an urban landscape, though the image is primarily about texture and color.
You can see more of my initial attempts at “urban blur” images here.
