On the Road to Carolina Beach, NC

This is an exceptionally busy time of year for nature photographers. After finishing up in Helen, GA teaching a class for the PPA of GA, I'm now in Carolina Beach, NC, teaching a class for the PPA of NC. This is such a great time of year to be here. The people haven't really showed up yet and the photo ops are incredible. There is a great cyprus swamp with blooming flowers around it, a great arboretum. Tomorrow, we're off to take a ferry to Bald Head lighthouse and to photograph an historic city in the vacinity.

With the class out today we worked on some special effects imagery, including panning and multiple exposures. The class is all professional level photographers, so they pretty much wanted to be left to their own devices after my instructional slide presentation, giving me a rare opportunity to photograph a few of my own images. Of course, I really can't resist sharing ideas with other photographers. One of the best things about using digital when teaching in the field is that I can show someone exactly what I'm talking about and what I'm trying while it's happening.

I found a great small stand of trees with some small green bushes in the foreground. I thought that it would make a great multiple, so I called the class over to show them the technique. After seeing the first image, those with multiple capability cameras went off to work on their own multiple exposure ideas. But, some did not have multiple exposure capability. So, I showed them how to achieve the same effect with a single exposure, while panning upwards, keeping the trees in the same line as much as possible.

Despite the fact that the weather was a bit rainy and unpredictable, we managed to work "between the rain drops," and had a great and very productive shooting day!

Comments

[claire-obscure]

This photo is absolutely amazing, and it definitely makes me want to experiment with this method. Is this an example of panning or multiple exposure?

[tony sweet]

Hi Claire:

This image is a 10 image multiple exposure while moving the camera upwards in very small increments.

Thanks!