Violameister wrote:
I agree with the OP. The clear majority of moving water photos these days involve some sort of fuzzy/blurry water using long exposure times. When I see with my eyes such moving water it certainly does not look like most photos. It doesn't look exactly like high shutter speed water photos either, but that look is closer to what I experience than the 'fuzzy' look.
The question is, why has this become so populat?
I think it's become popular because you can't capture the moving water, as your eyes see it, with a camera. The two choices are to shoot high speed and make the water stand still, or shoot longer exposures to make the water blur. I think many photographers choose the second option because it leaves the actual scene to the viewer's imagination. A happy medium might be to shoot at a shutter speed slow enough to get a very sight blur to show motion without creating a total, unnatural looking blur to the water. But, even then, it won't look the same as the way you actually see it with your eyes.