I recently came across a small patch of beautiful lavender flowers.   Unfortunately the patch was too small for anything except perhaps a macro shot, which wasn’t in the cards with the wind conditions that day and the fact that I didn’t have my tripod with me.  I know, I should never leave home without it.

So, working with what I had, I decided try one of the “rule breaking” techniques I learned about from a talk Joseph Rossbach gave to our photo club recently.   Using a small aperture to create a long (1/4 of a second) shutter speed, I deliberately moved the camera while taking the image.  In this first picture, the motion was a rotation with a little zooming of the lens at the same time.  In the 2nd image, the motion was more of an arch shape.

Whether this work is up to individual taste.  Personally, I think this type of photography is really cool, perhaps just because it’s such a contrast to the normal  “keep things still” mindset.   I really like how the circular lines in the 1st image tend to draw your eye to the lavender flower at rotation center that is still in focus.

At the same time, these images are a challenge as they force both the viewer and photographer to consider shapes and lines more than the technical details of the shot.

What is your opinion?  Do these images work for you or are they just a waste of pixels?  I’d love to hear your comments.