Experimental Photography: The Art of Launching Your Camera

Have you ever used your consumer level camera or phone camera and when you are excited to take a picture you are disappointed to find it has been blurred or streaked? There is that brief one second pause the camera makes and any camera motion can ruin a shot. Well, I’m here to turn that 2 second capture period of anger and disappointment into art. I know, you’re saying to yourself  “But Pete, if you do this in your camera settings you’ll be off scott-free lol.” Yes, I know there is a way to fix this, but, hey, we’re being creative here!

I’m sure there is some name or term for this camera phenomena, but I don’t know what it’s called. All I know so far is that I can make some pretty interesting things and do endless experiments.

Sure, I know this seems goofy, and yes, it is. But I’m kinda serious about this. It started off as fun and games, and turned into creativity.

So far, I’ve been using a Nikon Coolpix and my Samsung Access. I’m discovering different patterns in different situations and techniques, such as lighting, contrast of light, , environment change, as well as throw technique and speed.

Aside from a standard lob, there are some throwing techniques I’ve been using. (You are more than welcome to try this, but keep in mind, you are THROWING YOUR CAMERA, which if you do not catch or provide a soft landing for, can cost you big time.)

Above is the Helicopter / Ninja Star technique. Can be thrown either vertically or horizontally on either the X or Y axis.

The flip / tumbler. Head over heels. Can be thrown on the X or Y axis. Pretty self explanatory. This technique is interesting because depending on your environment, you can catch different depths.

The spiral / drill method. This is by far the most dangerous of all the throws I’ve discovered (so far). This one might take some practice. I’ve also found that this is one of the best ways to gain your maximum speed.

Now, I’m not trying to go super crazy with this, well, ok, maybe I am. But I’m going to avoid redundancy with varying speed, heights, settings, camera models, and techniques.

I know that what you are going to see below is very “streaky” but the images to come in the future may not always be limited to that style. Who knows, I may just try to launch my camera as high as I can just to see the kind of shot I could never imagine getting.

I will be uploading one image per week, giving a total of 52 for the year (duh). Since I didn’t start this project in week 1, I’m catching up with multiple pics in this post

My coworker came up to me before our show today and asked me what I was doing, and I said “making some light streaks”, showed him this picture, and he was impressed! The following images setting is here.

Ninja Star style, mildly fast.

Mild spiral, tossed about 10 feet up to 4 leko lights. If you pay attention, you can see my face.

Spiral, next to my China Hutch indoors, extremely fast.

Ninja Star, again, very fast, indoors in front of my TV.

Lobbed onto my living room couch (lighted room) from my dining room (dark).

Feel free to post your own or comment and/or criticize!