“The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life.” – William Faulkner

In art a major challenge/opportunity is how to represent objects in motion in a static  form.  In photography there are two main solutions to this dilemma.  

The first is stop-action, in which using fast shutter speeds the camera succeeds in freezing the action. Practicing this skill, the photographer can capture just the perfect instant that communicates the essence of the movement.  

In the world of painting we look to Degas, whose ballet dancers, (stretching, bowing, turning), and whose jockeys on horses (running, straining, prancing) are caught being their essential selves.  

Photography’s other option for dealing with motion is panning in which the photographer moves the camera along with the moving subject, resulting in a certain degree of blurring.  The timing of the camera’s arc is critical.   The Furturists show us how a series of overlapping images deliver the feeling of movement and speed. DuChamp’s Nude Descending the Staircase is another example.