Week Five: Implied Movement vs Actual Movement
It’s the last week of our composition series. Make sure you check out week one to four’s posts if you haven’t yet! This week, we are talking about a slightly tricky concept: Implied Movement vs Actual Movement.
Implied movement is when the viewer can not see the actual action happening in the photo but the visual cues make it seem like there is movement within the image. An example would be if it looked like someone was cutting into the cake while taking the photo, but they really just held the knife in place while taking the shot. Another way you could use implied movement in your photos is by using any sort of visual movement such as leading lines (as we talked about in Week One), repetition (which was Week Three’s post), or by using human elements in the picture.
Actual movement, on the other hand, is exactly as it sounds. The movement in the photo is actually real, therefore this can include drip, drizzle, dust photos. For instance if drizzling chocolate on a cake, the chocolate is actually being drizzled and moving while taking the photo.
Overall, if you are trying to understand the difference between implied and actual movement, try to remember this rule: If there is something frozen in place while taking the photo, you are using implied movement. If there is something actually moving while taking the photo, you are using actual movement.
If you want to test your knowledge of Implied vs Actual Movement, have a look at the six photos below and try to decide whether they are using implied or actual movement. (The answers will be at the bottom of this post)
That wraps up our composition series! I hope you learned something new. If you enjoyed learning all of these tips, let me know and I’ll bring the series back in the future!
After reading all of the composition series posts, do you have any questions or comments? I would love to hear from you!
Answers to the Implied vs Actual movement challenge: One- Implied Two- Actual Three- Actual Four- Implied Five- Actual Six- Implied