1/8000 of a second

After the rain finally stopped on April 21st, I spent a while in the main tributary of Bull Creek that flows through Great Hills Park, as you saw last time. To photograph some of the whitewater there I set a shutter speed of 1/8000 of a second. For several years I’ve had cameras capable of that fast a shutter speed but hadn’t ever gone down to such a narrow sliver of time. The point was to stop the action of the water that was moving much too fast for the human eye and brain to distinguish details. One consequence of so very brief an exposure was my need to use flash to get enough light for a decent picture.

If you want to play the pareidolia game again, I’ll suggest a side view of a rightward-facing elephant getting a shampoo. If that’s too fanciful and you’d like to stay in the real world, click the excerpt below for a better look at some of the turbulent water at 1/8000 of a second.

 

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman

Firewheel in motion

Gaillardia pulchella: firewheel, Indian blanket, blanket flower.

Lupinus texensis: Texas bluebonnet.

Shutter speed: 1/40 sec.

Movement: plenty.

Approach: experimental.

Place: Bluegrass Dr.

Date: April 4.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman

Waterfall abstraction

In contrast to yesterday’s colorful wildflowers in a cemetery, here’s a mostly monochrome view from April 20th, when I spent some time by a little waterfall that’s part of the prairie reconstruction along Tom Miller St.

For the photographic cognoscenti among you, I’ll add that I used a shutter speed of 1/25 of a second. For the artistically minded, I’ll add that the somewhat blue cast in this abstract photograph is due to the shade that still covered the falls at the time in the morning when I visited.

© 2015 Steven Schwartzman