Freeze or Blur?

Everything there is to using shutter speed on your camera.

Workshop Summary:

In this first workshop, you'll discover one of the most powerful creative controls on your camera: shutter speed. We'll start by locating the shutter speed dial or setting on your specific camera model, so you feel completely comfortable adjusting it.

You'll learn how shutter speed works—from freezing a split-second moment to creating dreamy motion blur—and understand how it fundamentally impacts your photography.

Through hands-on practice with your own camera, you'll experiment with both fast and slow shutter speeds, capturing motion in creative ways. By the end of the session, you'll confidently know where to find this setting and how to use it to achieve the exact effect you want.

We'll also touch on the fascinating history of shutter speed in photography. Photography revealed motion that the human eye couldn't catch.

Topics Covered:

• Finding and adjusting shutter speed on your camera

• Understanding how shutter speed affects exposure and motion

• Freezing action with fast shutter speeds

• Creating motion blur with slow shutter speeds

• Focus settings including AI Servo/continuous autofocus

Featured Works: Brief examples from Boulevard du Temple (1838), Eadweard Muybridge's motion studies, and Francesca Woodman's expressive self-portraits