Not every photo that is taken is a great one (I have thousands of photos that may never be published). As a photographer that is learning, accidents are bound to happen. There are times when things don’t go your way and a lot of times, those photos are never put on display.
I heard a comment from a photographer (unfortunately, I don’t remember who said it) that said “One blurry photo is an accident, twenty or more blurry photos is an art style.” In a way he was kidding when he said that, but at the same time he knew it was true. Is art subjective?
This photo was taken at an overlook on the Gatlinburg By-Pass heading into the Great Smokey Mountain National Park. With my camera I am able to set the shutter speed to a maximum of 30 seconds. There is one additional setting for shutter speed and that is “bulb”. What that means is that the shutter is open for as long as you hold down the shutter release button on your camera. I was using a wireless remote release for this photo and I was curious as to how the “bulb” option worked with the remote. It worked as expected, one click of the remote to open the shutter, another to close it. This particular image was shot for 40 seconds.
A friend of mine is just beginning to learn about photography and he was describing a shot he took and questioned if 30 seconds was too much for what he was shooting. I can’t really answer that question, as I didn’t get to see the photo he was describing, but I would have to say, it just depends on what you were trying to achieve with the shot. As you can see from this photo, nice shots can come from long exposures.