here’s a special kind of chaos that comes alive in a city after dark. When Kevin and I went out for some street photography in Tilburg, I wasn’t planning on experimenting… but the road beside me was practically begging for it. Headlights glowing, engines humming, the rhythm of cars passing like pulses of light through the night — it felt like the perfect moment to attempt something notoriously tricky: handheld long-exposure car photography.
Armed with my Canon 5D Mark IV and the Sigma 24–70 Art, I opened the lens to f/2.8, dropped the shutter all the way to 1/2 second, and kept ISO at 500. In conditions like this, physics isn’t on your side. Every heartbeat, every breath, every tiny muscle tremor becomes part of the photo. And honestly? Most shots were complete misses — streaks, smears, abstract failures.
But that’s the beauty of experimentation: sometimes the chaos aligns.
In this frame, the passing car locked into motion just long enough to stay recognizable, while the world around it dissolved into soft trails. Technically improbable, creatively satisfying. Handheld long exposure is a conversation between control and surrender — you guide the moment, but the moment also guides you.
And in those rare situations where the two meet halfway, the result becomes something unexpectedly artistic.
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Patrick
Maikel de Bakker
Eduardo Avila Carbajal
Javi
