Post 22 - Introduction to ICM
13-minute read, including photo captions
What is ICM (Intentional Camera Movement)?
On the most superficial level, as the name suggests, it’s a process or technique of moving the camera while taking a photo to achieve an intentionally “blurred” image.
If you’ve read any of my previous blog posts, though, you know that I couldn’t just leave it at the most superficial level. The “definition” above poses as many questions as it answers.
How is ICM done? What are the techniques and gear involved? What about post-processing?
And why on Earth would any sane person who spent thousands of dollars on photo gear want to create blurred images? The entire camera industry invests millions of R&D dollars every year in ongoing efforts to improve IBIS (In Body Image Stabilization), create higher resolution and sharper sensors, and manufacture lenses that cost thousands of dollars because of their extraordinary ability to mitigate vibrations, chromatic aberrations, and distortions. This includes camera phones, which are now incorporating increasingly complex AI-based computational photography as part of their offerings. So why would one want to subvert all of that tech and purposely blur an image?
Finally, what’s the history of this technique? How did I come across it? Who are the major players in the genre, and what kind of work are they producing?
Given these questions – and many more – I’ve decided to separate the discussion of ICM into several parts.
Part 1 – Intro: defining ICM with examples – what it is and what it’s not
Part 2 – How and why is ICM done? A non-technical (ok, maybe slightly semi-technical) review of gear and techniques in which I reveal the “secret sauce” of many of my images – a secret that may surprise many photographers and non-photographers alike. I’ll also explore my reasons for getting into this “sub-genre” of photography and why I love it so much.
Part 3 – The History and Practitioners of this art form – how did the idea of ICM develop and what type of work are others doing? How did I “discover” ICM?
Disclaimer
Before we start, I want to stress most emphatically that everything you’re about to read is my personal, subjective opinion.
I have read somewhat extensively on the subject (books, articles, blog posts), and viewed many YouTube tutorials. I have taken thousands of ICM photos on several different cameras and phones. Although I don’t consider myself an “expert” on the topic, I bring to the table a breadth of knowledge and experience that only a devotee of ICM would posses. Much of what follows - in all three parts of this presentation - can be considered the general consensus, or conventional wisdom, of ICM, but there may be many that disagree with some of my conclusions.
To avoid endless repetition and constant reminders that the “facts” I’m about to present are “correct in my humble opinion only”, I’m going to make that disclaimer once here and be done with it.
In short, the “authoritative tone” I adopt is an expedient to keep the word count of this post to a minimum. Take with a grain of salt whatever you see fit.
There’s also no way I can cite all my sources. This is not a thesis paper, there are too many sources (which would take me weeks to compile and document), and it would bore you to tears if I did that. So, let’s just mark it as read that I’m reasonably well-versed on this topic, and to a certain acceptable extent, I know whereof I speak. If anyone finds any outright errors, by all means, please let me know and I will gladly correct them forthwith.
If you have other ideas or opinions, I’d love to hear from you – comment below, send me an email, or message me on social media (see the Contact tab in the top nav bar for details).
Whew! Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get down to bizniss!
Definitions and Distinctions
So, what is ICM (besides just “intentional camera movement”)?
Sometimes contradistinction can help to answer an elusive question like this, so let’s start with what is not ICM.
Photographers have pretty much tried to simulate motion in still images since the invention of the art. There are two primary techniques to do this: Pan and Blur.
Pan – the camera follows a moving subject as the shutter is pressed. This blurs the background while keeping the subject in reasonably sharp focus. The camera is usually handheld in this case, but it’s possible to use a tripod. Shutter speeds can vary, but they’re usually on the slow side, to ensure a blurred background.
An example (above) of a Pan shot – I panned the camera with the subject to keep it as sharp as possible, while blurring the background. Handheld, shutter speed 1/25th of a second, which, if you’re unfamiliar with relative shutter speeds, is considerably slower than most photographers would use for a “normal” handheld shot.
Another example of a panning shot: I followed the car as it drifted around the curve. The horizontal slats of the fence behind the car help to emphasize the motion with their blurred, parallel lines, while the car is still relatively sharp and defined. Handheld at 1/20th of a second.
Blur – the camera is stationary while a subject moves in front of it. This blurs the subject while keeping the background in sharp focus. A tripod is usually used in this technique, but may not always be necessary, depending on shutter speed.
An example of Blur – with the camera on a tripod (and a 13-second shutter speed), the background remains sharp while the water becomes a creamy haze.
While the previous image is definitely an example of Blur (since the water is moving), the fountain itself isn’t actually moving, so that may confuse some people. Here is another “flavor” of Blur where the subject (night time traffic in Georgetown) is definitely moving. The camera was on a tripod across the street from the famous Martin’s restaurant (where John F. Kennedy proposed to Jackie Bouvier) with cars passing in front, their taillights leaving red streaks while the building remains sharp. Shutter speed 1.3 seconds.
A third, less common form of motion-simulation in a still shot is zooming. A variation of Blur, zooming while the shutter is open is not ICM – unless the camera itself is also moving at the same time. There is a lot of grey area here, but suffice it to say that some sites will not allow the inclusion of images as ICM if zooming is the only form of motion involved.
For example, take a look at the rules from this Flickr ICM Group:
Note that they go so far as to exclude dolly shots (where the camera is on a sliding rail system) – in other words, although the camera is moving in a dolly shot, it’s not moving “randomly” (I added the underlines, other emphasis is theirs).
Here’s an example of a long exposure zooming shot that would NOT qualify as ICM per the rules above – you can tell the camera didn’t move since all the background elements are sharp and static:
The Abstract Element
By this logic, you could argue that Pan must also be ICM since the camera is moving (panning) during the shot – and in a certain literal sense you’d be absolutely right.
The difference is one of intent, I believe.
The intent of a Pan shot is not only to maintain sharpness and clarity in the moving subject, but also to create a recognizable representation of reality. Even while simulating motion, it’s meant to be clear what you’re looking at – in the examples above, a rider racing a Pennyfarthing bicycle or a car drifting around a track. In fact, I go to great pains – with multiple shots and a practiced, steady panning technique – to ensure the subject is as clear and recognizable as possible while the background is blurred.
On the other hand, I have seen many ICM shots that use horizontal panning as their only motion. The most common of these is seascapes, where you have clear horizontal demarcation lines between sand, water, and sky – but there are many other scenes and subjects with which you could use horizontal panning motions only. Keep in mind, of course, that panning (and ICM movement) can be vertical as well - for example, photographing any number of events (high-diving, skydiving, bungee jumping, etc) with vertical action.
This, then, adds another nuance to the definition of ICM.
ICM is not just about moving the camera – it’s about creating, to a greater or lesser extent, an abstract image, while eliciting an emotional response from the viewer.
While the ICM effect may be subtle enough to render the original subject fully recognizable, the intent is no longer to create a faithful representation of reality. Taken to its logical extreme, an ICM image can be so abstract as to render the original subject completely unrecognizable.
The best way to think of this is as a continuum.
There is no hard demarcation line you cross on the spectrum ranging from “reality-representational” to “abstract”.
To illustrate the point, during my day shooting the Drift Nirvana event, I did actually try to do some “panning ICM” shots by panning AND jiggling the camera at the same time. Here’s an example:
As indicated by the light trails of the door handle and the tail light, I used an upward “swooping” motion while panning to intentionally blur the car AND the background. The intent here was not simply to realistically simulate motion with a panning effect, but also to lend an “artistic interpretation” to the act of drifting a car. The compositional choice of cutting off the nose of the car (forcing the imagination to complete the image) was intended to heighten the excitement and tension of the moment, while the “ICM jiggle” was incorporated to add that extra “artistic” dimension. Whether or not you agree with my choices – and either like the photo or not – my point here is that the line between ICM and Non-ICM can be somewhat…ummm….blurry.
Examples of ICM
Take the following series of photos as example. All these photos were taken from the exact same vantage point (my balcony). The only variations are time of day (sunrise or sunset), the season, focal length (zoomed in or out), or slight change in composition/view point (a foot to the left or right, or slightly higher or lower). Although even the first iteration is clearly an ICM image, we are also just as clearly moving through a continuum from the “somewhat recognizable” to the “totally abstract”. Note that these are all single images (no layered composites) created only with various different shaking and jiggling motions (and variable shutter speeds) - there are no “special effects” or Photoshop filters of any kind applied here. The only post-processing done has been to increase contrast and saturation.
To give you a baseline, here’s a “straight” shot from my balcony, overlooking a golf course. The trees in the foreground, and the two high rise buildings in the background are the subject of all the shots below. Fall through Spring are the best times of the year for this kind of shot since the trees are bare and you can see through to the buildings in the distance.
A wavy, vertical motion imparts a delicate, “feathered” feel to the image. This is decidedly an ICM image, even though the subject is still recognizable as high-rise buildings through trees (zoomed in).
The same shot, even more abstract. Without the context of the original image, you would be hard-pressed to identify this as buildings through trees - but, knowing what you’re looking at, you can still make out the original shapes. The squiggled lines of the light on the right show the random, continuous motion used to create this shot.
Again, without the original image as a reference, would you be able to identify this as the same subject? The buildings are hardly recognizable as such, and the branches of the trees are much less obvious. Many people to whom I’ve showed this photo have asked if it was a painting.
Now we’re completely out in left field – even with the context of the images above, there’s very little recognizable here as buildings and trees.
See what I mean? Can you tell this is the same shot? This could easily be a slightly blurred macro shot of mother-of-pearl shell, or a glass marble, or whatever.
Here’s an example of an ICM zoom shot – the camera is both zooming in and moving while the shutter is open, so this would qualify as ICM (by the Flickr group rules above). But can you tell it’s the same scene (taken during blue hour after sunset)? If I told you this was taken on a street in downtown DC, and those streaks were oncoming car headlights, would you have any reason not to believe me?
The same shot again, with a wide view – the swirling of the lights in the lower right give you an idea of how the camera was moved during this exposure. And this could just as well be a seascape or landscape as a cityscape.
Believe it or not, this is the exact same vantage point. As certain times of the year, the sun sets in such a way as to reflect very strongly off the high rise buildings – sometimes blindingly so. The trees are recognizable here, but there’s no way you’d guess that the yellow/gold streaks are sunlight reflecting off windows - it pretty much looks like the woods are on fire.
So far in this series, I’ve shown you the brighter, or “harsher”, examples of the set I created from my balcony. Here is one, shot during early sunset, just as a heavy thunderstorm was clearing, and the sky was opening up. The lowering sun was beginning to light up the remaining storm clouds on the horizon, and after many iterations, I managed to capture this subtle, feathered image with a strange mix of the bucolic and slightly ominous about it.
The point of this series was to highlight the idea that an ICM image can exist anywhere on a continuum from very subtle camera movement that produces an identifiable subject to crazy-random movement that produces something totally abstract. Also, the same scene can look radically different as the light and ICM movement changes.
To give you a taste of some subject matter NOT shot from my balcony, here are a couple of urban examples:
This is a classic example of a right-place-right-time image. After having had dinner with a friend in Baltimore who is a commercial photographer, I was trying to describe some of my ICM work to him, but I didn’t have any samples to show him - and having seen these images now, you can appreciate that verbal description alone is utterly insufficient. As we exited the restaurant, the building across the way was just catching the setting sun with blinding reflections off the glass. I pulled out my camera phone (the Galaxy S5, at the time), and while my friend watched, I fired off a few “demo” shots, just to show him the possibilities. I never expected to get any “keepers” from the bunch, since it usually takes dozens or even hundreds of shots to come up with one or two usable ones. Much to my surprise (and his), when I saw this on the back of my phone, I knew right away it was going to become a favorite.
I love the use of negative space in compositions, so for this sunrise photo, I started my ICM “swipe” on the edge of the frame to ensure that most of the image would be of the clear blue sky, offset by a strip of golden, blurred building.
Carnivals are a great place to shoot ICMs - with so many things in motion already, it takes just a little extra jiggle of the camera to come up with striking images like this one. To me, this image conveys more of the jubilance and exuberance of a carnival ride, than a freeze-frame capture (even with a happy expression). You can almost hear the cacophony of the crowd, music, and machinery all melding into a sibilant symphony….
Here’s a good example of why I usually keep my camera on the passenger seat when I’m on road trips - you never know what interesting things you might see out of the car window. Coming back from a photo shoot, I was in slow traffic at rush hour on the Beltway, going past some bright lights that I had a feeling might look interesting as an ICM. I slowed the shutter way down (2.5 seconds), perched the camera on my steering wheel, and just held the shutter button down for a few minutes, blindly firing away one shot after another - while steering and keeping my eyes on the road the whole time. For this shot, the camera didn’t even have a chance to focus while it was firing, which adds an interesting dimension to the random bouncing, swaying motion of driving.
People often make better ICM subjects than you’d think, but I’ll admit there’s a secret about how this one was made that I won’t reveal until next week. Come back next Saturday for that - but in the meantime, I’ll reiterate that this is a single image, no composite layers, no special filters or tricks. This was all done in-camera….
Most of my ICM work tends toward the abstract – the reason for which we’ll explore further in the next post – but I’ll end this round of examples with a shot on the more recognizable end of the spectrum.
This image (one of my enduring favorites), which employed a subtle diagonal upward jerk of the wrist (and a 1.6 second shutter speed), is still readily recognizable as humans walking down a path and sitting on benches in the late afternoon (given the golden glow and long shadows). In fact, if you know the DC Mall well, you might even recognize this stretch of path next to the Reflecting Pool in between the Lincoln Memorial (behind me) and the WWII Memorial (the white area visible through the trees on the left). The intent here, though, was not to produce a blurry image of reality that forces you to guess where it was taken, but rather to create a piece of (nearly abstract) art that evokes an emotion. This image speaks to me of leisurely sunset strolls in bucolic surroundings, and just generally radiates warmth and relaxation. What does it say to you?
I would never presume to compare my work to a great painter like George Seurat, but, when I first saw this photo on my computer monitor, it reminded me of some impressionist paintings, especially the pointillist masterpiece “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte”.
That lofty sentiment brings us to the end of our introduction to ICM – and segways us nicely into the second part of this series by hinting at the “why” of ICM.
Next week we’ll explore the “why” and the “how” more thoroughly.
I hope this gave you a good introduction into ICM. To summarize, we’ve defined it as a technique in which:
The camera is moving while the shutter is open. That movement can be vertical, horizontal, diagonal, rotational, subtle, or psychedelic – or all of the above.
The intent of the camera movement should be to create an abstract and emotive image, even if the original subject is still recognizable.
For these two reasons, Pan, Blur, and Zoom (alone) are not considered ICM, even though panning shots use the same motions as some ICMs (although there is considerable grey area with panning, and many exceptions to this rule).
My only concern with a “clinical” review like this is the potential that it distracts from the sheer beauty of the undertaking (if I do say so myself). To free yourself of the left-brain definitions, I encourage you to enjoy these pieces – and several more – with only your right brain to guide you through the Gallery slideshow. Avoid the temptation to identify what you’re looking at, and focus on how it makes you feel. Only then will you be able to fully appreciate ICM for what it is – and begin to understand the “why” part of my love for this type of work.
There are more photos not shown in this post in the Gallery - don’t forget to check that out. Enjoy!
As always, thanks for reading my blog posts!
Next week we’ll continue to explore the world of ICM in Part 2 of this series.
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