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Hello, .

When it comes to composition, when looking at a picture, it is hard to tell if a visual effect was caused by focusing or by shutter speed.

The effects sometimes look similar, but there's visual and causal differences.

One is by an exposure setting, and our lens causes the other.

When critiquing pictures, it's easy to confuse the visual of blurry and unsharp.

For example, if we focus on something, it'll appear sharp. 

But if what we focus on moves and our shutter speed isn't fast enough, then what we focus on will blur and appear unsharp.

Another scenario is when we use a shutter speed too slow to handhold our camera. In that case, we can have what we need in focus but unintentionally blur the entire photograph.

Blurr is a visual characteristic of the movement of our subject or our movement while hand-holding the camera. 

Blurr is related to shutter speed. 

We can make moving things in our picture record as blurred or static (not blurred). 

Sharpness is a visual characteristic of focus, and focusing is done with a lens. 

Sharpness happens when we focus on something at a specific distance.

Since we can only focus on one distance at a time, what's immediately in front and behind whatever distance we focus on becomes unsharp.  

Shutter speed and focusing are only a couple of the compositional considerations in our work. Still, they're essential for us to be involved in when making a picture because they're foundational.  

I'll help you be a better photographer—study and practice photography with me. 

And what if the timing doesn't work for you in any of my scheduled group classes? If that's the case, let's schedule a one-time lesson or a series of in-person or online private instruction that covers the same things as my group classes. 

Ways to work with me are listed below.