Unravel

A study of exposure and motion of reflections on moving wheels.

car lights abstract Urban motion blur wheel time

I had kept seeing strange shimmering shapes when I would drag my vision from one thing to another. I hadn't paid attention to them at first but realized they were coming from the wheels on cars.

When I tried to look at the wheels I couldn't see it, but when I looked at the street without moving my eyes, I could see it crossmy vision.

I had my camera with me and took a picture of it to see if I could capture what I was looking at. It turned out to be the reflection of the sun in wheel rims.

As the cars sped by, the wheels' circumference would essentially "unravel" along the street. A short animation found on Wikipedia illustrates this.

Some cars gave some very unsatisfying results, their rims grimey, matted, or just plain, but every once in a while there would be some big SUV sitting on a wide set of impressively shiny rims, and they became my target of interest because they made the best captures.

After a while I noticed that the car itself had next to no impact on the image, and that even some the exotic expensive cars could still produce a dull image, and that humble cars with nice wheels would actually give the best results.

Reflections on the chassis and windows helped with the abstract and streaky look.

I completely accomplished the look I wanted once I knew what kind of ethereal subject I was capturing.

In the beginning I started very abstract, but later on the pictures became more urban and concrete (no pun intended). They complement each other, showing something seemingly intangible, and then how it lives in an everyday object, just outside our perception of time.