Experimenting with Slow Shutter Speeds and Lee Filters 'Little Stopper'
As an amateur landscape photographer, there was always one thing I really wanted to try but could never quite work out how to do. I had always looked at images featuring slow moving water with great admiration as, without a filter, I could only watch as my camera whited out the image. I didn't understand how to do it and never quite got round to researching it.
Last year I picked up a copy of Outdoor Photography magazine to read while I waited for my netball match as I was there quite early, and in it it showed how to do this using Little and Big Stoppers, and it was like a switch going on in my mind.
Fast forward to Christmas and my boyfriend, wanting to buy me something I really wanted rather than something frivolous as a gift, asked me to decide on a stopper, and for now, as I have no way to use the bulb setting on my camera to great effect (yet!), I settled on a Little Stopper. Perfect timing, too, as I headed to my parents for the Christmas holidays and thanks to lots of rainfall and the blue hue of winter found some gorgeous places to take photographs using it. It was very experimental but overall I am incredibly happy with how it turned out! And I never expected it to be so soothing, waiting for the second click of the camera that lets you know when the image is complete! Next up I plan on taking it to a beach to hopefully capture the ethereal quality of the tides coming and going, and eventually I'll buy a shutter release and a Big Stopper to expand it even further. I can't believe it took me so long to discover this!
