Capturing motion blur in photography

One thing that I strive to consistently implement in my work is producing sharp images. I love shooting wide open, mostly for a single person portrait such as a bride or groom. But I have found that leaving my aperature at 2.0, my sharpness rate has increased, especially on moving subjects. We all want nice sharp images so the thought of camera shake and motion blur in a picture might make us cringe.

I have found though, by reading photography related articles and looking at a few example of other photographers, that motion blur can be a very good thing to create a very cool and dramatic affect to a photo in several occasions. One that I can think of is on the dance floor or at a reception hall. You can capture the mood and feel of a dance floor by slowing your shutter speed way down at about 1/30th of a second or below and no Flash. If you have a steady hand, you can capture the lights that surround the reception hall, or the lights that make up the mood of the room while having all the people blured and look like there is alot of motion going on. This effect really makes a photo look like it is standing still, frozen in time. Here's a very good example of this that I found on another photographer's blog:

Doesn't it look like someone hit the fast forward button to the future and everyone is moving fast forward while the entire room stands still? I think it's fabulous! You can almost feel all the buzzling and excitement that is going on.

Lets all try to get a little out of our comfort zone and think a bit outside of the box and really push ourselves to try new things. You may not succeed the first time but I bet that with more practice, you will start to create photos that are truely unique and reflect your style and your creativity! I will be shooting a wedding this Saturday with Jennifer Werneth and I can't wait to try this technique during the party!