your time ago, we challenged you to capture motion blur . This week, we’re upping the ante. Your subject can be in motion, however it’s the background of the shot so as to blur into obscurity.

The Challenge

Take a photo of something in motion, capturing it completely sharp with the background in a blur. But we’re not searching for soft bokeh effects. We specifically want you to imply velocity throughout the background.

The Method

There are two ways you’ll be able to pull of this kind of feat, both with an analogous end goal. You would like your camera to be tracking your subject-not just sitting still, locked down on a tripod, but matching or attempting to compare your subject’s movement.

You can hold your camera and pan the camera throughout the exposure. There’s a handy flickr forum on this method, and member FullFramePhotography summarizes the technique succinctly:

Both hands on the camera, right one at the 3 o’clock position, the left supporting your lens at the 6 o’clock position. Start from one extreme and begin tracking the subject in a smooth horizontal motion. Once you release the shutter, keep panning within the same direction, as if to follow through. This helps keep your motion smooth. All of your upper body is all in favour of the movement, hips included. It takes plenty of practice and patience. Wanting that, you would have got to use a monopod, or tripod with a decent pan head.

To nail a smooth pan, always start from your destination, rewind yourself into your starting position and then execute the pan. It’ll feel 1000x more natural-especially important for video production.

The other option is to be in a vehicle or something that matches velocity of your subject-that is exactly how our lead example shot was executed by flickr member peasap .

The Rules – READ THESE

1. Submissions must be your individual.
2. Photos must be taken the week of the contest.
3. Explain, briefly, the equipment, settings, technique and story behind shot.
4. Email submissions to contests@gizmodo.com, not me.
5. Include 800px wide image (200KB or less) AND a 2560×1600 sized in email. (The 800px image is the single judged, so be at liberty to crop/alter the larger image for wallpaper-sized dimensions.)
6. One submission per person.
7. Use the best SUBJECT line to your email (more info on that below)

Send your best photo by Monday, August 30th at 8AM Eastern to contests@gizmodo.com with ” Velocity” within the subject line. Save your files as JPGs, and use a FirstnameLastnameVelocity.jpg (800px wide) and FirstnameLastnameBlackVelocityWallpaper.jpg (2560px wide) naming conventions. Include your shooting summary (camera, lens, ISO, etc) within the body of the email together with a story of the shot in several sentences. And don’t skip this story part because it’s often one of the most enjoyable part for us all beyond the shot itself!

If you adore Shooting Challenges, you may as well like my new site: Life, Panoramic. Today, we actually have an entry from a mystery Gizmodo writer.

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This post is tagged: challenge, Photography, shooting, velocity