PhotoJ: Stopping Motion

Action, movement, traveling through space. Nothing encompasses the motion of the human body quite like parkour. I attended a parkour competition for this week's assignment: to show motion with a picture. We could choose to use a fast shutter speed in order to capture a "peak moment" or use a slower shutter speed and pan with the movement to show motion with a slight blur. 

I managed to get some decent shots, but I was not completely satisfied with my take; making a crisp image in artificial light is not easy. 

“It’s a way to be expressive with movement,” says Dane Vennewitz, 32, about parkour, a growing athletic art aimed at moving from one place to another in the most efficient manner possible. Vennewitz swings between ropes on the third course in a Parkour Obstacle Course Challenge on Saturday, Feb. 19 at Parkour Visions in Seattle, WA. He says he enjoys parkour “partly because it’s so new and undefined. It’s not established like gymnastics.”

Parkour practitioners, also known as traceurs, move swiftly and precisely through obstacle courses.