A Lesson on Slow Shutter Speeds

In Truckee, we were very close to the river and we took a few walks to take pictures. One of my major goals during our week there was to get some pictures of the river in "motion". For example:

To achieve this, I needed several things. First, I needed a good time to do it. I needed low light, and the light to be behind me. When you slow the shutter speed down, the camera takes in more light. To have a longer shutter speed and to avoid overexposure, I needed low low light. I achieved this by going at dusk. For a shot facing upriver, I would have needed dawn. The other thing I absolutely had to have was a tripod. Any shaking of the camera would have made the still items blurry, not just the river. Beyond a tripod, I used a remote. This meant that I didn't have any shaking from pushing the button. Not necessary, but helpful.

I discovered, that whether I used a shutter speed of 2 seconds of 5 seconds, the picture only varied in exposure, not in the movement of the water. So I soon decided to keep the backgrounds on my photos in good exposure and still get excellent movement of the river. If the river had been slower, I would have had to use a slow shutter speed. Fortunately, it's a swift river.

For a finishing touch, I popped it into Lightroom and used Direct Positive and it was done.