Monthly Theme - Long Exposure (May 2021)

Thanks to everyone who submitted entries for April's “Different Perspectives” theme!

We love that our community is full of creativity and new ideas. It's always such a pleasure to see what you've been up to each month, even if it does mean it's really tough to choose just six finalists each month! Scroll down or jump to view this month's shortlist and vote for a winner! (You can also check out all of April's entries here.)

But first, we'd like to introduce our May theme...."Long Exposure"

Inspired by the seasonal melting of snowcaps causing immense flow over local waterfalls, a long exposure theme felt like a photography match made in heaven! If you're not planning on chasing waterfalls anytime soon - don't sweat it, there are loads of other cool shots you can master, with or without water!

Below, we've highlighted our favourite 'go-to' long exposure shots, all of which are far easier to achieve with these key photography accessories:

• A Tripod - essential for capturing crisp lines around the area of movement.


• A Natural Density Filter - highly recommended for daytime use as it limits the amount of light entering the camera lens


• Shutter Release - another tip for minimizing any movement

For specific tips and guidance to help nail shots like our highlights below, check out these super handy blog posts from our archives:

• A Guide to Daytime Long Exposures


• Nailing a Night Time Long Exposure

1. Soft and Silky Waterfalls

One of the best ways to capture the beauty of a waterfall is to use long exposure shots to get that stunning effect of silky, cloud-like water cascading over the crisp lines of rocks and in-focus foliage.

We especially like this example by @jgpittenger.

2. Real Life Ghosts

Create ghostly images of people wandering through a shot, or get your subject to stand still and capture the movement in their hair and clothes caused by the wind.

We love this cool example by @overalvandaan!

3. Deserted Scenes

The beauty of a long exposure is that if you keep the shutter open for long
enough, everything that moves will eventually disappear, leaving you with a
deserted scene – particularly effective in places where we are used to seeing
lots of people such as:

• Train Stations


• Main Roads


• Shopping Malls


• A Theme Park or Attraction

We can't stop looking at this shot of rush hour in Paddington Station by @pasttheirprime.

4. Night Time Light Trails

As well as focusing on the flows of water or people during the day, setting up in busy urban spots at night is a really accessible way to experiment with long exposure photography.

This shot by @paulwbaker has great composition, with a dark night's sky and the light trails from a passing ferry which leads the eye deep into the frame. We also love the crisp neon light contrasting against the soft, shimmering reflections of all the lights in water.

5. Luminous Light Paintings

Using bright, fine lights - like sparklers, glow sticks, neon lights or the torches on our phones - we can use long exposure to have fun writing or 'painting' with light on a black night-sky canvas.

This shot by @elza is the perfect example of how to have five minutes of fun with sparklers!

6. Star Trails

Something like a star trail can require exposure for at least a couple of hours, so when experimenting with long exposure, remember to keep an open mind (and diary)!

This shot by @lesip is simply gorgeous, we love the framing of the quiet cottage by the glowing lake, being framed the spinning stars!

7. Smooth and Smouldering Skies

Looking up and focusing on the skies during the day can have it's advantages too! We love the serenity long exposure can bring to even the stormiest of skies. Teamed with a coastline and the smoothing effect on both the sky and water, the juxtaposition against rocks, cliffs and people can make for a spectacular shot!

We think this photograph by @cdcook48 is a stunning example!

As always, we hope you all have loads of fun experimenting with this month's theme, we can’t wait to see what you get up to!

How to enter this month’s theme

When uploading your photos use the tag section (on the edit/organise screen) and insert this week's theme tag: theme-LongExposure (all one word).

Entry Guidelines: Photos must be your own and must have been taken and uploaded between Saturday, May 1st and Monday, May 31st. 6 finalists will be chosen in the first couple of days in June, then you'll get to vote for the winner!

p.s. Don't worry if you spot some tagged photos from a previous theme, when choosing our six finalists we'll use a special algorithm to only filter the images from May 2021.

Vote for a Winner of April's "Different Perspectives" Theme

As always, we had so much fun reviewing your Perspectives submissions! With so many amazing entries it took us a while to choose just 6 finalists, but now it's over to you to vote for the winner of the “Different Perspectives” theme.

To cast your vote, simply reply to this blog post with the number (in digit form) of the photo you would like to see win, before May 14th. We’ll announce the winner in a separate post shortly after!