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These days, tons of people take photos with their phones. They simply frame a shot and tap the shutter button. Boom - photo done. No rocket science involved. And sure, you can definitely capture some great shots this way. But... isn't it kind of boring? When your phone (or camera in automatic mode) does all the work, that's convenient on one hand: the photographer can focus entirely on the composition without getting bogged down in technical details. But on the flip side, aren't we potentially robbing ourselves of a huge chunk of the creative process?

Let me illustrate with an example.

In the first image, there's a fountain in a park. The photo was taken in afternoon sunlight, with backlighting, and camera settings that pretty much match an automatic mode.

It's a regular, standard, generic photo.

Now let's take practically the same photo, but this time with a longer exposure time. Using a longer exposure requires less light, so we'll simultaneously need to use a higher f-stop (or dim the sunlight with an ND filter - though I didn't have one with me).

An f-stop of 22 allowed me to extend the exposure time to 1/6 of a second, which transformed the water droplets. While they appeared as frozen points in the first image, here they stretch into longer lines. The entire fountain suddenly looks much more powerful and dynamic.

However, 1/6 of a second is impossible to hold steady by hand, so a tripod becomes essential. Or you can get creative with improvisation. In my case, I simply set the camera down on a park bench and carefully triggered the shutter to avoid any shake.

Adjusting aperture and exposure time is one of the most straightforward techniques, but it can dramatically transform your image. And you don't need a professional DSLR - most smartphone cameras these days offer some exposure time settings you can play with.

By the way, long exposure times open up a world of creative possibilities. For instance, you could wait for a jogger to pass by and create a cool motion blur effect like this. 😊

So this is what happens when you've got a lazy Sunday afternoon, hanging out in the park with nothing better to do. But if you're looking to get involved in something a bit more exciting, I'd like to draw your attention to a new photography challenge:

Same But Different

Check out all the details at this link:

https://ecency.com/hive-174812/@hive-174812/same-but-different-new-photo-challenge-prologue

We kick off this coming Monday, September 1st, 2025