We started down this trail on a nice sunny day, by the time we left it was pouring rain; that's Cohutta for you, the rain can move in quickly and leave just as fast. I love to shoot early in the morning or late in the evening but that is not always possible and we have to make the best of the situation we find ourselves in. Being in a valley there was a lot of shade. I loved the way the water played with the rocks on this river. I wanted to show the strength of these rocks and the beauty of the river flowing so I chose to use a slow shutter speed to make the water blur and have a slight romantic feel to it.
The first thing that anyone needs to know when learning how to shoot good photographs is the correlation between shutter speeds and apertures (also known as f stops). If movement is the most important objective one of your first decisions will be what shutter speed do you need to use. A shutter speed is not only a factor in the amount of light that your sensor receives it is also a factor in the movement of your subject. The faster that your subject is moving the shorter the shutter speed should be. In order to stop a moving object you must shoot at a shutter speed that will allow you to stop the movement. Also, in order to blur things such as the water in the river above you must use a slower shutter speed. Depending on how fast the water is moving this can be as slow as 1/2 second. The best way to achieve this is to use a tripod, this will hold your camera steady so only the things you want moving will blur.
That's all for now. Since this is our first post we will post again on Monday the 2nd of May. We will discuss a little about apertures then.
