Bright Mode Multiple Exposure In Action

Several weeks ago, I wrote a series of posts about using in-camera blend modes to make multiple exposures. I thought it might be useful to show a practical example that includes the thought process of picking a specific blend mode.

On my recent trip to Colorado to photograph the fall aspens, I made many ‘regular’ landscape photos of the trees with their leaves glowing brightly when lit by the sun. Seeing miles of bright yellow is truly awe-inspiring. After a day or two, I wanted to see what else I could do to express the feeling of being surrounded by these colorful leaves. I wanted to transmit the feeling of being enveloped in them, and decided to try a multiple exposure to do so.

My idea was to duplicate the leaves and have them fill the frame, but still make it apparent that the photo was of a grove of aspens and not just leaves. So, I decided to make the multiple exposure using Brighten mode while trying to keep the camera in the same horizontal position but changing its vertical position between exposures. This would allow the bright leaves to show through anything that they overlapped that was darker than them (which is to say essentially everything save, perhaps, the tree trunks). My camera was on a tripod, and, since my Canon R5 shows the ‘image thus far’ with an overlay, I was able to keep the tree trunks more or less on the same vertical line for each exposure. The result is below, and in my mind, it seems to transmit that feeling I was trying to capture.

Blanket Of Leaves © Howard Grill

Playing around with the image in Photoshop, I decided to see what it might look like as a black and white. This is not a finished image, but I show it because I was fascinated to find that it transmits a completely different type of feel. As opposed to being happy, this version seems to transmit the feel of a large and desolate forest, perhaps with a bit of a spooky feel. A good one for Halloween.

The leaves appear to have all fallen, but it is, in fact, the exact same image as seen above.

© Howard Grill

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