City movement

A great way to emphasise the notion of time and the pace of life in city centres is to capture the movement of passers by. This only requires an exposure of a few seconds, enough to capture a blurred effect, but not too long that the crowds disappear all together. James Maher explains how he got this shot of the crowd in Grand Central Station: I wanted to create a strong contrast between a stationary person and a beautiful owing crowd, so I chose a 6 secs shutter speed to ll the majority of the frame with motion. The key to this shot was the sharp woman, and for that I had to wait for the right person to stand still for long enough. I couldnt have envisioned a more perfect person entering the scene. She stayed for a minute or two while I shot 6 sec exposures continuously. Exposure 6 secs at f/8; ISO100 Lens Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM
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People in motion

In order to blur the movement of people in the scene youll need a relatively slow shutter speed. Unless youre shooting in low-light conditions, a slow shutter

Filter the light

speed will result in overexposed shots, so youll need to use an ND (neutral density) lter to stop down the light. An ND lter is neutral grey in colour to reduce the amount of light hitting the sensor in order to facilitate longer exposures. A variable ND is very versatile variation as it lets you adjust the density, stopping down the light between around two and eight stops.

sec Without ND filter: 1/15

With ND filter: 1 sec

You can have fun experimenting capturing movement in your shots by playing with angles and perspective to create more abstract shots. The black-and-white conversion of James Mahers shot adds to the effect. This photograph was taken of two subway trains leaving a station at the same time. With fast-moving trains you do not need a very long exposure to capture the motion, and after a few tests I chose to use 0.4 sec. The wide 27mm equivalent angle enhanced the feeling that the trains are converging together, and I chose a wide aperture so that the sharpness of the pole would stand out as the focal centre of the scene. It creates an almost dizzying effect. Exposure 0.4 sec at f/4; ISO100 Lens Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM

Angle of view

When shooting with slow shutter speeds try to avoid touching the camera during the exposure, including using the cameras shutter release button, as this can cause mini vibrations that may reduce the quality of your shot. The best solution is

Remote shooting
to use a remote shutter release; the cheaper option is to use your cameras self-timer instead. Simply set the Drive mode to the clock icon; recent EOS models have a choice of 2-sec or 10-sec self-timer modes.

A remote release enables you to re the shutter without the danger of jogging the camera