Yesterday I watched Street Photography in Bad Light by Faizal Westcott, and it hit a nerve—the good kind. The one that reminds you you’re still a photographer even when the sky is a blank sheet of printer paper, and the city looks like it’s been rinsed in dishwater.
Toronto today was exactly that: flat light, overcast drift, a bit of rain that couldn’t commit. The kind of day that quietly dares you to stay home and “work on something else.”
So I went out.
Not with the GFX100RF. Not today. I wanted to experiment, and experimentation likes forgiveness. I took the Fujifilm X-T5 with the 18mm f/2 because I wanted to get back to my home base: the 28mm field of view. And I chose the X-T5 for one reason that matters when your shutter speed starts dragging: IBIS. Stability gives you options.
This was another quest. Not for perfection. For possibility.
If you’ve read Finding Style in the Street: The 28mm Field of View and the Discipline of Presence, you already know I’m obsessed with how one focal length can become a way of thinking. Today, I wanted to see if that same discipline could survive blur.
And here’s the twist: ICM isn’t a detour from street photography. It’s street photography—just told in a different language.
What ICM Actually Is (And Why It Works in the City)
Intentional camera movement is usually defined as moving the camera during the exposure for a creative effect. Motion replaces sharpness as the primary compositional tool. Instead of freezing time, you stretch it.
That matters in the city.
Street photography is already about motion—people crossing frames, traffic threading through intersections, light bouncing off wet pavement. ICM stops pretending that the city wants to be held still. It lets the environment smear, breathe, and speak in motion blur rather than in detail or sharpness.
One of the things I keep coming back to with ICM is anonymity. Faces dissolve. Identities soften. People become present rather than subjects. In a genre that constantly wrestles with ethics and visibility, that abstraction feels meaningful rather than evasive.
Why I Picked a Bad-Light Day on Purpose
Faizal’s video wasn’t really about motion blur. It was about dependency—how easy it is to only shoot when conditions flatter you.
That’s a trap I know well.
There are stretches where I’ll chase “good light” as if it’s the only legitimate reason to walk with a camera. But street photography doesn’t offer guarantees. You step outside and accept the terms.
Today’s terms were simple: overcast skies, light rain, low contrast, no drama.
So I changed the rules.
ICM turns “bad light” into raw material. Flat days become atmospheric instead of dull. Rain adds reflections, streaks, and micro-highlights you can pull through movement. The day didn’t lack interest; it just required a different response.
My Setup: Simple on Purpose
I kept things deliberately lean.
- Fujifilm X-T5
- 18mm f/2 (28mm equivalent)
- IBIS on
- No tripod
Once you start working at slower shutter speeds—1/8s, 1/4s, sometimes longer—you’re constantly negotiating exposure. Aperture closes down. ISO floats. ND filters become relevant if the world insists on brightness. Today, I used an ND2 filter; the clouds did the heavy lifting for me.
What mattered more than settings was intention.
What I Actually Did Out There
I treated the walk like an exercise, not a portfolio hunt. That mindset shift matters.
I worked in three loose modes.
First, a still camera, moving subjects. I planted myself and let pedestrians pass through the frame. The city held steady while people wrote the blur.
Second, tracking and panning. Moving with a subject so the figure retains some coherence while the environment stretches into lines. At 28mm, this is subtler than with longer lenses. You have to exaggerate your own movement to see the effect.
Third, making still scenes move. This was where things opened up. Tilt, shift, rotate, micro-vibrations. A static corner suddenly feels alive because I decided it would be.
That last one matters. ICM rewards curiosity more than precision.
The Emotional Part: Forcing It, Then Finding It
There was a point where it felt like I was forcing motion blur onto scenes that weren’t asking for it. Some frames weren’t poetic or abstract—they were just messy. Nothing landed.
That’s part of the process.
ICM prioritizes colour, texture, rhythm, and light over fine detail. If you keep hunting sharpness, it will feel like sabotage. Once I let go of the need for traditional “success,” the work started to breathe.
I began looking for strong shapes, bright jackets against muted backgrounds, headlights and reflections, umbrellas, signage, pedestrians cutting through simple geometry. The city didn’t become prettier. It became usable.
Where This Fits in My Broader Practice
This isn’t me abandoning my commitment to the 28mm field of view. It’s me stress-testing it.
I’ve written about photography as practice, about walking the city as a way of thinking, about situational awareness, and about building a body of work that lives first on my own site rather than inside someone else’s algorithm. ICM fits into that ecosystem.
It’s another way to stay awake.
If street photography often worships the decisive moment, ICM quietly argues for something else. It says a moment doesn’t have to be pinned down to matter. It can stretch. It can echo. It can smear across time and still tell the truth.
What I’m Taking Forward
Today wasn’t a masterpiece day.
It was a permission day.
A reminder that I don’t need ideal conditions to justify picking up a camera. Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is let go of expectations and let the city meet you where it is.
So here’s the rule I’m carrying forward.
When the light goes flat, I don’t go home. I go abstract.
And maybe that’s the real value of ICM in street photography. It doesn’t rescue bad days. It uses them.