For some of us, every day

Holiday time is rolling around again of course, and far be it from me to maintain my typical curmudgeonly attitude in the face of the worldwide celebrations, thus my festive contribution to today, which is I Meant To Do That Day, the annual holiday where we maintain the bare truth that, although it looks like an accident, it really was intended to be exactly this way. My example:

Al Bugg in an inadvertent zoom portrait
Yes, once again we see Mr Bugg, but even though it looks like he’s chimping, there’s no way in hell that he could possibly be doing that because he’s assured me that he’s broken that habit. He even agreed to let me shut off the review function entirely, and will soon be taking up film where of course this is entirely impossible: that’s how confident he is of his advancement. However, what he didn’t do was hold his camera where it was supposed to be for this dynamic zoom effect, where the focal length of the lens was changed during the exposure, producing these attention-focusing streaks of motion. The changing field of view causes motion blur, with the effect strengthening with distance from the center of the frame; in this manner, only the center of the frame remains with little to no blur, and our attention is drawn right to that spot. It looks off-center here because I know what framing and cropping are. The zoom should have drawn attention to his camera, had he cooperated, but what can you do?

Note too that the shutter speed (mine, not his,) was only 1/100 of a second, thus the zoom had to be taking place in this very brief time frame. That’s professional timing, that is. Alas, I can only control what is in my power; next time I may have a model that can follow instruction.

I will swear the truth of all this upon a stack of bibles, or whatever other collection of ludicrous fiction you procure.

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