lightsnapping

Lightsnapping is a colloquial term referring to the phenomenon where a camera's flash appears to "freeze" or momentarily stop a fast-moving object in motion within a photograph. This effect is primarily due to the extremely short duration of a camera's flash. A typical camera flash lasts only a fraction of a millisecond, often between 1/1000th and 1/5000th of a second. When this brief burst of light illuminates a scene, it effectively captures the object at a single, precise moment in time, creating the illusion that its motion has been suspended.

This is not actual stopping of motion, but rather a visual artifact of the illumination method. The object is still moving at its original speed, but the exposure to light is so fleeting that its movement during that instant is imperceptible in the resulting image. This technique is commonly employed in sports photography, wildlife photography, and even in everyday snapshots to capture dynamic actions clearly, such as a bird in flight, a dancer mid-leap, or a splash of water. The effectiveness of lightsnapping depends on the speed of the object, the duration of the flash, and the ambient light conditions.