1. Be bold
Look for a location with large, strongly-coloured features. Small details and subtle textures will be lost in the blur, so you can’t approach these images in the same way you would a normal landscape photograph. We found that the rolling green fields of Solsbury Hill in Somerset gave us flashes of colour, with textured lines from the panning motion.
2. Go panoramic
The best type of tripod head for this technique is one with a vertical locking feature, so it can pan sideways, but won’t tilt up and down – a three-way head or a dedicated panoramic head is ideal. If you’ve got a ball head, you can lock the head off and loosen the column nut, so you can still pan left and right. You can even shoot handheld at a push.
3. Slow down
Shutter speeds of between one and four seconds tend to give the best results. Try to pan slowly and smoothly, and keep the camera moving in one direction to make it look like there’s more intention behind the movement. You can either pan your camera horizontally, as here, or vertically. Trees with very straight, light-coloured trunks are ideal for vertical panning.
