What is pop and blur in photography?

Flash and ambient light combined

When you shoot with a flash, there are two exposures going on at the same time: one originating from the ambient light, the other to the flash firing. The pop in “pop and blur” is the flash firing, and the blur is the shutter being open for sufficiently long time to let in the ambient light. So pop and blur is combining flash and ambient exposure in one and the same image.

Behind the cow here I am waving a stick of light like a pendulum. The long exposure makes it look like a white background. The flash lights up the cow – had it not been for the flash, the cow would have been a black silhouette. EXIF: 0.8 Second at f/22 and ISO 100.

If something in the frame gives off light, like the headlights of a car or a flashlight, any movement made will be captured by the long exposure. This is in stark contrast to objects only being lit up by the flash. It is this combination of things moving and things standing very still that makes pop and blur so fascinating, if you ask me.

Here I am moving a constant light in a circular motion captured by the ambient light. My hand is lit up by the flash and is hence absolutely still despite the movement.

If you let your subject be lit up by both the flash and the ambient light while moving, then you get a “trailing” look – you may have seen photographers use this for catching people dancing as this gives a very sharp image and illustrates the movement at the same time.

If your subject is moving and is hit by both ambient light and the flash light, you get this trailing look – the pop and blur classic!

Your cameras default setting is most likely to activate the flash at the beginning of the exposure – also known as first curtain synchronisation. Most cameras allow that you change this to be flipped upside down, so the camera now fires the flash with second curtains synchronization. This way you can control the order of the flash and blur. With first curtain sync the flash fires at the beginning of the exposure, with second (or rear) curtain synchronization, it fires at the end of the exposure.

Related reading

What is a camera’s max flash sync speed?

Flash photography – why bother?