Work With Shutter Speed

Break the rules of sharpness in landscapes, and play with colour and tone

Landscape photography is a genre that rarely benefits from fast shutter speeds. While there are occasions when short exposures do find a use – when looking to freeze a cascade of water flowing over a waterfall, for example – in the majority of circumstances photographers choose extended exposure durations.

A fast shutter speed will often produce an unnaturally static scene that lacks energy. In some ways this approach generates images that recreate the scene exactly as our eyes see it; however, this is far from inspiring, and a deficit of any visible motion can be unsettling. By lengthening the exposure to several seconds we can produce a blur of movement that’s beyond what we usually see, adding drama and dynamism. Shutter speed determines how realistic the blur effect is.