ICM (Intentional Camera Movement) – contrary to everything that you have strived to achieve!
Intentionally moving the camera whilst in the process of capturing the image was something that I had experimented with in the past, but merely out of curiosity. One of my first attempts capturing grass movement was described as “disturbing” – maybe one level up from bland but improvement definitely required. Perhaps my artistic leaning was already moving towards abstract, and it was this change in direction that led to me heading out with an ICM agenda for the day. That day turned ultimately into a month-long project, and it is ICM which now constitutes a significant part of my artistic style.
With ICM, there are no rules, and you simply move the camera whilst in the process or taking the picture. Ok, so there may be a little bit more to it than that as you have to consider the texture, lines, contrast and the colours within in the panning window. Add in shutter speed, speed of movement and direction of travel (multiple exposures for the more adventurous) and you get an explosive recipe for the weird, wonderful, chaotic and often beautiful. On the downside, you also get a lot of unusable images which does lessen significantly with practice as you know which movements are best suited to the subject matter of interest. However, if you are precious with regard to your shutter count, then maybe it’s not for you.
Still, it really doesn’t take long to figure out what works, what doesn’t and how to make it fit into your own personal style or genre. It is perhaps no surprise that mountains, forests and waves have been the primary settings so far in my adventure, and in a similar way to mixed media, you are not so dependent on weather and perfect conditions to be able to create something of interest. Furthermore, being able to switch your mindset or point of focus between different genres in the same location is also a skill worth developing, as landscape and nature are constantly changing and there really is never a fixed agenda.
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