Photography is a static medium, but the ocean is always in motion. Movement can be frozen to reveal details that the naked eye just cannot resolve at speed, or manipulated by extended exposures to produce dynamic, intentionally blurred images. Completely blurred frames usually leave the viewer wanting more. The sense of motion is most dramatic when images combine both blurred and sharp details.

Photography Tips for Swirling Water Effect

1. How Slow?
Long exposures are needed to capture movement, but how slow should you go? When intentionally moving the camera during the shot, you need a shutter speed slower than 1/15 seconds. However, I try to stay faster than ¼ to keep the exposure short enough to be controllable. To prevent these long exposures from overexposing, also lower the ISO and close the aperture accordingly and, as a consequence, turn up your strobes. On a bright, shallow dive, you’re often not able to achieve these shutter speeds, so this technique is ideal for rainy days that reduce underwater light levels.

2. In a Spin
It is easier than most people think to create a swirl in a photo. All you need to do is rotate the camera during a long exposure. Rotate the camera as if you were steering around a sharp corner in the car; slowly and smoothly is best. The challenge is to produce an attractive photo that blends sharp, in focus details on the subject with a blurred background. This is easiest to achieve when the subject is much closer than the background so the strobe light can freeze the subject but does not light the background, allowing it to blur.

3. Zoom Explosion
Zoom blur is a classic photographic technique that’s surely as old as the first zoom lens. It involves simply zooming the lens during a long exposure, which creates dramatic lines exploding out from the subject. It requires a zoom lens with a mechanical zoom mechanism, rather than the powered zoom of a compact camera. Start with the lens at its widest setting, frame up, start zooming in, and shoot. Like all long-exposure shots, it can take a few attempts to get a good one.

Photography Tips for Accelerated Panning

When subjects are moving, emphasize this feeling with the following tips:

Beginner Tip
Panning in photo terms simply means moving the camera in one direction, such as a videographer filming a landscape. It can be used to capture a moving subject when photographers pan the camera in the same direction and at the same speed. With smooth, steady movements that keep the subject in the same position in the frame, you can capture a sharp subject, but the background will be blurred by movement.

Intermediate Tip
A long-exposure shot with panning fills the image with the energy of movement and complements the dramatic subject matter. An open-water background has no detail to blur, so it is better to frame subjects with an intricate reef or other details a little distance behind them. Try a diagonal composition like the one shown above. This emphasizes movement and makes the image feel more dynamic.

Advanced Tip
The faster you pan the camera, the greater the sense of movement. Accelerated panning is a technique where you pan with the subjects, shoot, and then — while the long exposure is still ongoing — speed up and overtake the subject. This creates lots of blur and makes the movement extend behind the subject, giving the viewer a sense of speed.

More Underwater Photography Tips

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dr. Alex Mustard is a marine biologist who has been a fulltime photographer since 2004. His latest book, Underwater Photography Masterclass, is out now. To see more of his work, visit amustard.com.