ICM—in camera motion—is a technique used to add interpretive aesthetics to an image by moving the camera during exposure while the shutter is open. Generally, the effect created is impressionistic. The shutter speed duration must be long enough for the motion to register in the capture, typically 1/3 of a second or longer.

ICM effects can be accomplished with the camera on a tripod or—more often—handheld. The direction and speed of motion in relation to the subject matter is crucial. ICM is hit-or-miss: you can expect many essays for each good result.

The Tall Trees image below is an ICM image made on my iPhone with a shutter duration of about one second via the Slow Shutter Cam app. Motion was steadily from top to bottom, elongating this already impressive aisle of trees.

ICM is for iPhones too!

Tall Trees © Harold Davis

The wisteria are in bloom around town. Their lush blues and purples, and lavish grape-juice odor, dominate the staid landscape of “the flats.” In the hills, the wisteria are not quite at their peak, with more blossoms to come, but still gorgeous with every ounce of their being.

I photographed the Wisteria Gate image, shown below, yesterday with my iPhone along Gilman Street near San Pablo Ave in West Berkeley, California. I processed the image on my iPhone using the Waterlogue and ImageBlender apps.

Wisteria Gate © Harold Davis

The last few years have been traveling years for me. This means time in restaurants. Sometimes alone. Waiting for food. Or with a crowd out eating, but alone inside. Either way, what better time to play with photography and glassware? Here are some of my favorites…

After a long day walking the Camino, I stopped at a small hamlet for a meal and bed. Watching the trees from the perspective of a glass of wine I felt I was in touch with a holistic sense of the world, and that everything would be integrated and alright:

Trees and Wine © Harold Davis

In a French brasserie they take their glassware and bottles seriously. I got up from my culinary meditation over an excellent cassoulet and photographed these blue bottles at the bar:

Blue Bottles © Harold Davis

Blue or green, what’s in a color? Apparently, this depends on the shadows against a stucco wall:

Green Bottle © Harold Davis

Bottles come in ones and twos, and perhaps the Pepper Shaker enjoys a colloquy with the water bottle in this Maine waterfront restaurant:

Two in a Bar © Harold Davis

Across the spectrum red is possible as well as blues and greens at this informal place in Paris:

Carafe at Lunch © Harold Davis

Sometimes the cutlery likes to get into the game, and the spoon is reflected in a polished, reflective carafe in Germany:

Spoonerismo © Harold Davis

It’s a short leap from spoons refracted in a reflection to a place setting reflected in a napkin holder at a roadside rest in Portugal:

Napkin Holder © Harold Davis

Other times things can get rowdy as when I lined up these glasses at an end-of-workshop party in Heidelberg:

Wine Glasses at a Dinner Party © Harold Davis

I photographed this glass and carafe in a cafe on the main square of Monpazier, one of Acquitaine’s signature bastides (you can see the covered market structure through the open doors):

Monpazier Cafe © Harold Davis

Neither white nor red, but definitely a good watercolor subject:

Rosé © Harold Davis

At a romantic, candle-lit restaurant in Germany I made an abstraction of a candle refracted in a drinking glass. The glass was green and held some kind of fancy drink. The shape of the green glass occupies the right side of the image:

Glass and Candle © Harold Davis

In the historic Ferry Building, in downtown San Francisco:

Glasses © Harold Davis

Waiting for service in a restaurant near Valletta, Malta:

Maltese Cross © Harold Davis

Paint-it-darker patterns and magnification with a beaded placemat in a casual Dordogne restaurant in Brantome, France:

Glass on a Placemat © Harold Davis

In Bourges, France, I was primarily interested in the differing way the shadow from my glass fell on the table cloth as opposed to the way the shadow fell on the wood of the table itself. The bright, curved lines within the shadow are created by bright reflections off the water in the wine glass, but they aren’t quite aligned at the borders of the cloth and wood, due to the differing refractive qualities of the two surfaces:

Shadow of the Glass © Harold Davis

A different phenomenon of light and shadow is to be found in this glass of wine, with the sunlight coming through an awning in Varenna, Italy, where I was enjoying a late lunch beside the Lago di Como with my good friend Mauro:

Eye of Sauron in his Cups © Harold Davis

No matter where you are, and what you are doing, you can always find interesting visual subjects, things to photograph, and ways to make art. Olé!

Phyllis says that for her my Camino is visually a succession of hotel room interiors. This is because of the nine-hour time-shift with California. When she is sleeping, I am walking, and when she is going about her day I am sleeping. Our hours are close to orthogonal.

Old Wood Door with Blue Paint © Harold Davis

We FaceTime when I wake (her bedtime), I walk and she sleeps, and we usually touch base again after I’ve checked in, my late afternoon becoming her early morning. She sees my Camino essentially as different window treatments in the backgrounds of my screen: red curtains morph into lace, and then into green shutters, or a stone wall.

Letter Box © Harold Davis

By the way, these are hotels that cater to pilgrims. They are okay, some better than others, and all more than a little bit odd. So far, they’ve had the necessities: a bed and a shower and a “pilgrim’s dinner”.

Tree and Wine © Harold Davis