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NOTE: I was invited to write this column for Pixiq.com because I am the author of the book Experimental Digital Photography published by Lark Books in 2010. This book was the result of a long personal quest to make photography more personal and more expressive. The following is my story.

When I bought my first digital camera in 1998, I knew I finally had the camera I had dreamt about in my hands. After 30 years of using film, my quest had ended. As an amateur astronomer, I thought of Galileo looking at the craters on the moon or the moons circling Jupiter with his new telescope -- because I believed a digital camera could also open new doors. I felt it could photograph a world never seen before and make visible what had been previously invisible.

My first digital camera was a Casio QV100. It was no better than a throw-away snapshot camera by today's standards -- holding only 64 640X480 photos in its fixed memory while eating batteries at an alarming pace and costing hundreds of dollars.
Yet for the first time I could experiment and see the results of my trial and errors on the LCD monitor at the back of the camera -- while the subject was still in front of me. And then after reviewing the shot, I could go back and try again, slowly zeroing in on a unique image that was part of that particular moment.

As I kept pushing the envelope, I understood why digital cameras could do things that were virtually impossible in film. I say "virtually" because although it was technically possible for film to record these images, the photographer could not previsualize the resulting exposure, thus making these kinds of shots almost impossible.

Around the year 2000 I bought a more sophisticated camera and settled on the notion of taking pictures at slow shutter speeds, from 1/2 second to 8 seconds, handheld. I wanted to record the sense of energy that a blurred moving subject could create -- not the typical frozen shot that had, in a way, locked out the feeling of motion. And I wanted to work handheld as that gave me the freedom to quickly change my point of view. In addition I decided to work mostly at night since night let me shoot at longer exposures and often allowed me to "paint" motion against the darkness.

Also around this time, I settled on one theme that I still photograph to this day: musicians in the act of performing. The subject seemed like a fruitful one that I could explore endlessly and so I have chosen to show a series of these pictures as an example of my slow shutter speed techniques for this article.

Now I take photographs of all kinds of things at slow shutter speeds: my wife driving, self portraits, people walking at night, festivals and rodeos -- mostly in candid situations under available light where I try to stay out of everyone's way. And since that year 1998 when I bought my first digital camera, I have taken tens of thousands of photographs. Most of them don't work but the failed shots often lead me to the moment when they do work. And for me these capture a sense of the moment unlike any other kind of photograph.

Then having a lifelong interest in modern art, I remembered that painters had tried to depict people in motion and even musicians in motion. So I did some research. What I uncovered was a fervent quest for the representation of movement in still imagery that had peaked around 1915 when motion pictures were perfected -- which caused this quest to essentially be abandoned.

There was one movement in particular: Futurism. The artists associated with this movement created paintings and even photographs that were similar to what I could capture with digital photography at slow shutter speeds. Another movement, Cubism, also created work similar to my photographs, but the Cubist concern was a bit different; it looked at a person or object from several perspectives at once.

"All things move, all things run, all thing are rapidly changing. A profile is never motionless before our eyes, but it constantly appears and disappears."
From the Technical Manifesto of Furturist Painting

In 2003 I ignored my fellow photographers who shook their heads when they saw my fuzzy pictures; I posted my blurred photographs of motion along with my ideas on my website [ www.rickdoble.net ]. Then four years later to my astonishment, this led to my work being presented in Europe. After several years my work had been shown at a number of conferences, exhibits and publications in Europe and the work on my website lead to the publication of my book Experimental Digital Photography by Lark Books in 2010. My work has now been seen in Italy, Romania, U.K. and soon in Portugal and my book is in its second printing.

At the Generative Art Conference in Milan Italy in 2009, two Italian Professors, Marcella Giulia Lorenzi, Mauro Francaviglia and I offered this presentation:
The Future of Futurism: Experimental Digital Photography and the Futurist Art Movement:
and in the Journal Of Applied Mathematics, I and the same two professors explored the scientific aspects along with the artistic aspects of this kind of imagery. Motion And Dynamism: A Mathematical Journey Through The Art Of Futurism And Its Future In Digital Photography

So if there is a lesson to my own personal quest, maybe this is it: Follow your instincts and things might -- although there is no guarantee -- just work out.

NOTE: If you want to know more about shooting and handholding at very slow shutter speeds read my other articles here at PIXIQ on that subject. www.pixiq.com/contributors/rick-doble

For more about my approach to photography see my book: Experimental Digital Photography.

Join me on Facebook. Become a 'fan' of my Facebook page on Experimental Digital Photography. Click on the 'like' button at the top of the Facebook page.