Conveying Motion: A Wildebeest Abstract

There are two ways to convey motion in an image: freeze the motion or blur the motion. While watching wildebeest cross the Mara river during the migration in Tanzania, and making many photos that froze the action, it was time to start experimenting with slow shutter speeds to create a more abstract image that contains some motion blur.

I changed my camera settings to a low ISO and the smallest aperture opening which allowed the longest shutter speed possible without using a filter to block some of the light. Everything was happening so quickly that I didn’t really have time to start playing with filters.

In post-processing, I used Lightroom to increase the exposure and apply split toning until I got a high-key look.

I think this is one of my favourites of all the wildebeest photos!