Creating a Moving Shot

I was looking at this image I had in my research and it seemed to me that the car looks really crisp yet the background is supposedly rushing past quite quickly. It's almost as if they took a stationary shot of the car and superimposed it onto a moving background, or added the motion effects in post-production.





This gave me and idea for my layout. My problem is that it's very difficult to take a shot of a moving car because you need a professional steady camera and you also need another car that can go along side at the same speed, which I don't have. So I thought what if I can create a moving shot for my spread using an existing stationary shot of the car. I know how to create motion blurs in photoshop so it wouldn't be that hard to do.

This is the result. I took a shot that best matched the one in my sketchbook plans and used Photoshop to create what I think is a really convincing moving shot of the Fiesta. The effect was created by applying 3 different motion blurs, each at different angles, which all point to a single focus point (the end of the road in the distance) thus creating the illusion of perspective and making it look like the camera was moving in the same direction as the car. I think added another layer on-top which just the car in it's original state, which made it seem as if the camera was moving at the same speed as the car. I also added some radial blur effects to the wheels to make it look like they were spinning.

Overall I'm really pleased with how this turned out. The contrast between the motion blur and the car being in focus really makes the car stand out from it's surroundings. And it definitely looks more dynamic and exciting, further emphasized by the slightly rotated angle in which I took this shot.

I put the headlights on when shooting this photo because research showed that cars with their lights on look more active and have connotations of being lively and aware. All of this matches the tone of the article which talks about how fun the Fiesta is to drive.

Even though this was originally a test shot, I've decided I want to use it in the final because it turned out so well. There isn't any pixelation and the resolution is very high so there's no technical reason why I can't use it. I think it looks professional enough now that I've enhanced it in post-production.