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In the previous post in this series I explained some of the foundations related to the role of exposure time in photography. This time I’ll share some thoughts on uses of long exposure times as an artistic tool, especially in scenes with moving water.

The effect has been demonstrated often, so let’s just summarize it briefly. Moving water looks very differently depending on the exposure time. With very short exposures, the movement will freeze, like in this crashing wave exposed at 1/1000th of a second.

The river Kuusinki is the smallest of the three larger rivers in Kuusamo, Finland. Still, it is renown as an excellent fly-fishing river and once hosted the world fly-fishing championship.  Its attraction lies in a population of wild brown trout that migrates every year up from the White Sea for spawning.

So it was for fishing that I first visited the river many years ago. And usually in September water levels in the river are relatively low (even though there are deep pockets of water). This year, however, I had already been warned by locals that water levels were unusually high. That often indicates bad fishing, but also for a photographer it changes the scene in significant ways.