If you are of a certain age, you might remember a time travel movie trilogy where this line was used frequently. When taking a landscape image, it is easy to lose sight of the fourth dimension...time. How we use time to our advantage when making a great image can be the difference between a good and a great work of art. Sometimes all it takes is being patient. Waiting for the wind to die down or the clouds to move a bit or the sun to cast perfect shadows. All of these examples show how we need to work with the fourth dimension to take good shots, at least outdoors.
For this blog, I am talking about a different application of time though. I want to explore the effect that a long exposure may have on our image and by extension, our lives.
Consider the image below of Chapman Falls in Devil's Hopyard State Park in Connecticut. How does this image speak to you? For me, it’s all about time. First a few details on the shot. I took the shot on October 22 of 2016. Later in fall foliage season in Connecticut. ISO was 100, f14 with a 13 second exposure. I had a neutral density filter and a circular polarizer on the lens.
The first and most obvious reason to slow the shutter down is to smooth out the water and get that silky look to the waterfall. There is more though. I also took a shot at a fast shutter speed to freeze the leaves on this windy day. I would easily blend the two images of the silky water and the trees frozen perfectly still together later in post production. At least that was my plan.
When I opened up the image, this shot stopped being about tack sharp leaves and silky water and became all about time. To be precise, it is about how different things and by extension people move through time at different velocities.
If you look at the rocks, they didn’t change much in the 13 seconds it took to make the image, the water changed quite a bit, some spilled over the ledge, some spun in little whirlpools and some passed out of frame and down stream. The leaves also changed. Some blew in the wind, a few fell off onto the ground and a few fell into the water destined to decompose and return their nutrients back to the cycle in parts unknown.
It started me thinking about how we are all passing through time at different velocities. Some of us age quickly, some on schedule. Some lucky ones like my wife don’t look a day over 29.
So this image hangs on my wall just as you see it here. It is the perfect metaphor to remind me that yes time is fleeting or rather our time here is fleeting. But if we quiet our minds there is plenty of time to see all the beauty and wonder around us, even if we have to take ourselves out of the instant we are living in to stop and look, even if only for 13 seconds.
What do you think about this image? Please leave a comment below.