I made this image, because like you, I myself have been mesmerized by the same effects you mentioned below when I was young. I remember the first time I was riding a train in China, and saw the railway passing by in a blur, but sometimes if you concentrate hard enough, you can just make out the individual crossbeam. I could also see similar but more pronounced effects on a spinning fan under artificial lighting. I later learned there is a reason behind all this. Most artificial lighting is a basically a high speed strobe oscillating at 50-60 Hz. If you have a fan spinning at the same frequency as the light, you will see a frozen doubled pattern. If you are on a moving train in the sun, with a lot of trees around, the lighting is also flickering because of the shadow cast from the moving leaves or other nearby objects. Of course this is not at a consistent frequency, so the effect is very vague and fleeting.
Anyways, this is not a natural occurring photo. To express what I saw on that first train trip in my childhood, I employed Photoshop to add several layers of motion blur to show the effect. Well, now that the secret is out, I still hope this image can bring back some memories from the past for some viewers. - Jing
Olaf.dk
18-Mar-2004 04:58
Not that this is going to be of any help to anybody, but somehow this image made me think of - and want to share a little tale from my life:
When we learned about the physical phenomenon "interference" [I hope that's what it is called in English] in the equivalent of junior high school, our teacher used old western movies as an example: as the stage coach slows down, you see the wheel turning first one way and then, due to "interference" with the shutter of the movie camera, the other. I said that I could have sworn that I'd seen the same phenomenon in real life, to which I got "that's not possible". Well, since then, I have seen it many times in real life. Of course it is still "interference", just not with a camera shutter. Sometimes it is due to the imperceptible flickering of streetlamps, other times it has been because of a fence or other repetitious pattern between me and the moving object I've been looking at... Sorry for rambling!
--Olaf
Olaf.dk
18-Mar-2004 04:05
Jing, I like your idea and execution! Kind of puts me back to boyhood, when I would notice - and sit and stare at phenonomas like these for long periods of time. --Olaf
Guest
17-Mar-2004 09:12
I just had a thought. Probably the scene is illuminated at least partially be artificial light, which is flickering. No doubt that is what is causing the partial multiple exposure. -- Victor
Guest
17-Mar-2004 09:11
To my eye, this looks like more than just simple motion blur. If you look closely at the rocks you can tell there is a double image. Is this a double exposure? Can you post more details of how this shot was taken? -- Victor
