Joe McNally: How to Show Motion in Stills

On this  Adorama video, pro photographer Joe McNally talks about creating a visual representation of movement in a still image.

McNally gives two different examples of shooting sports in the olympics in a way that captures the movement of the moment. The first is a pan image using a monopod. The image captures only the legs of the runner at a relatively slow shutter speed while panning the camera on the monopod. For the second image in the pool, McNally used a flash as he was running along side the swimmer and shooting constantly – this is a difficult technique and even with experience only very few images (if any) will turn out well but you can achieve some interesting results if you have the patience (and are allowed to run in the olympic pool which is typically a no-no).

You can find many more helpful photography tips on our Photography tips section here on and  LensVid. You can also check all of Joe McNally previous videos here on the site on this link.

Iddo Genuth
Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.

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