Intentional Camera Movement (ICM): how I (try to) turn motion into art

Unique forms of continuity in Hong Kong (tribute to Umberto Boccioni)

Discovering Motion

When I first started wandering the streets of Hong Kong with a camera in hand, I quickly realized that trying to freeze the city in a single, perfectly sharp frame felt limiting. The city never stops moving and neither did I. Nor did the trams, taxis, reflections on glass (or the hundreds of cockroaches near your shoes when you’re focusing on shooting). That’s when I decided to experiment with Intentional Camera Movement (ICM), a technique that lets you stop resisting motion and start playing with it, turning blur into beauty and chaos into something that almost looks like art (...with lot of luck).

ICM is relatively simple to say: you just have to set a long exposure and move the camera. Yeah: easy to say...but challenging to practice! The tricky part is mastering the infinite possibilities and making it look deliberate rather than an accident. Hong Kong, with its energy, crowds, skyscrapers and the symphony of neon and noises, became my perfect training ground. Most of the time it’s frustrating and occasionally ridiculous...but never give up!

First Experiments

One of my first “wow” moments happened in Mong Kok (I don’t exactly remember where now, but probably somewhere along Nathan road). A group of people was crossing the street and, after setting my exposure at 1/6, I moved the camera up while taking the shot.

The result was incredible: the figures stretched and twisted into abstract shapes and that immediately resembled me Umberto Boccioni’s famous sculpture "Unique Forms of Continuity in Space". Excited, I immediately named the photo as a tribute to this masterpiece. It was exciting to see human movement frozen in a way that recalled me Futurist ideas of velocity, rhythm and the energy of modern life.

Another memorable experiment involved a group of cars passing by. I zoomed out while the vehicles accelerated, transforming the scene into strips of light and motion. Again: the result felt like coming straight out of Italian Futurism: the emphasis on speed, dynamism and the visual rhythm of urban life was captured in another, unexpected way.

Velocity of cars

Expanding the Technique

ICM soon became part of my broader experiments with multiple exposure photography. Often I combine it with multiple exposures, allowing me to layer movement and motion across different frames, creating surreal and almost dreamy scenes. A street scene can become a dance of shapes, lights and human flows, turning ordinary moments into abstract compositions that feel alive and unpredictable. Some shots even look like intentional accidents and that’s exactly the point.

Dancing

As you can imagine, the percentage of failures while using this technique it's pretty high, but when, after 50 terrible shots, that perfect image finally appears, then it’s pure magic!

ICM is about seeing motion not as a problem to fix but as an occasion to tell a story differently. Hong Kong taught me to stop chasing perfection and start embracing movement, imperfection and the occasional accident.

And yes, some shots still look like I fell asleep on my shutter button (well, those ones will never be shared for obvious reasons...). Others resemble abstract chaos and that’s okay. ICM just gives all that chaos a frame, a rhythm and a reason.

In the end, it’s all movement: the city, the light and me, still experimenting, still tripping...and still hoping my blur looks like art!

Technical Tips for ICM

If you want to try ICM yourself, here are a few practical recommendations:

Exposure time: it really depends by what you want to achieve, but you can try experimenting setting your exposure in a range between 1/20 to 1/4 seconds first. Experiment with longer exposures for more abstract results.

Aperture: it can be somewhere between f/8–f/16 or even higher, otherwise it might be too bright.

ISO: Keep it low (100–200), since the amount of light coming in will be high due to the long esposure time.

Movement: Vertical sweeps, horizontal pans, zooming in/out can create dramatically different effects and yes, accidental shakes sometimes lead to the most interesting results.

Tripod or hand-held: Tripods give more control, but hand-held shots can add spontaneity and unpredictability, which is often what makes ICM exciting.

Have you ever tried ICM yourself and what surprising results did you get?