Barnstorming with Nick

Nick had told me of a barn that he found. He had passed it one day when there were great clouds and light, but, unfortunately, he didn't have his camera. Then, I think he returned once later for a dawn shoot.

On Monday, he saw promising afternoon clouds and light locally, so he called me at almost the last minute, and we arrived at the barn around suppertime. As is the way with outdoor photography, by the time that we arrived at the location, we were not greeted by either great skies or great light, but we pulled out our gear and made photographs regardless.

Nick was introducing me to double exposure photography. I have dabbled a very little, but Nick has done quite bit of experimentation. Het set me up and told me what to do. For this initial image, I first photographed the barn and then I took a separate photo of the sky in another direction. 

As long as we put the camera into double exposure mode, it will blend the two images as it sees fit. This is the result, or close to it. I say, close to it, because it is not exactly SOOC (Straight Out Of the Camera) because one still does a little post processing. For one thing, I am pretty sure that I darkened the sky and lightened the barn a bit

 

The next photo was a similar setup at about the same time and place as above but using a different part of the sky for the second shot. However, I didn't care for the camera's blending. Fortunately, I had programmed the camera to save the two individual photos as well as the blended result, so I took the two individual photos and layered them myself in Photoshop. Therefore, it is a double exposure but done in Photoshop and not in camera. I also decided that I would convert to b&w. The result is a more traditional photo than the above, and I quite like it.

We moved closer to the barn where among other setups, I chose the angle, below. I will limit today's post to four photos, but I think that I can safely promise to post photos very soon. Or is that more of  threat than a promise? 

This next image was also from two exposures, but I didn't shift the camera this time. I just made a normal exposure for the barn, but then I made a darker one because the barn exposure had blanked the sky. 

In effect, this was an HDR image, for those who might know what that means. It was not done with HDR processing, however. Once again, a few might know what I mean by that.

Then, Nick had me do some more multiple exposure photography. Below, I took one shot of part of the barn and another just of the grass. Once again, I didn't love the blended result from the camera, so as above I combined the two images manually in Photoshop. I think it's an interesting outcome.

Whatever your opinion of these experiments, I found it really nice to be out there photographing with a friend and trying some new things, both in the field and also later at home on the computer.

I shall return to you soon with more photos from the shoot and will also, hopefully, also return to the barn at some point in nicer weather and at a nicer time of day.