Something new

I've been wanting to try a new technique for my motion photos. Normally I photograph a scene one way, either vertically or horizontally depending on which direction the dominant lines of the scene "flow". Trees usually work best as verticals and water or distant landscapes often work best as horizontals. But the idea has been growing in my head that I should try photographing a scene in several different ways, then combine portions of them so that each part of the scene uses motion strokes that emphasize the subject in that area. Of course it was midnight or thereabouts when I decided to actually try this, and so I couldn't just run out and take some new photos. So I found a scene that I had shot a while back and worked with what I had. This was a winter scene with snow on the ground and ice floes in the Missouri River at sunset. I like the results; the grass in the foreground and trees on the far side of the river work best with vertical strokes, and the river has nicely irregular wavy strokes that really are a great interpretation of the flowing water.