Autumn Brush Strokes

I would like to share an image I made last fall while leading a photography workshop in West Virginia. I was about to take my group out to Pendelton Point for a sunset shoot when i noticed an amazing display of red and yellow in a field on the way. The light was bright and low in the sky back lighting the scene. The warm fall foliage was glowing and intense. I knew there were some great photo ops and even though we would be hard pressed to make sunset, I decided to stop and give everyone at least 15 minutes of shooting time before we had to depart.

Now, the meadow was busy and we were all having a time finding a clean composition. I suggest that maybe instead we focus our energies on creating some impressionistic images through the use of multiple exposures and swipes. This particular image is the result of setting my Nikon D300 with a 70-200mm lens racked out at 200mm to multiple exposure. I dialed in 10 shots and set the menu to auto gain. Using Aperture Priority I shot 10 images while moving the camera ever so slightly between each shot in an upward motion. I did this handheld by the way at 1/250th of a second. The trick to these images is to make sure that you pan the camera just a little bit between each shot and try to keep the vertical motion even all the way from start to finish.

I hope you enjoyed this post and learned a few things as well.

Best of light, Joe Rossbach.