Double Exposure at Soldier Creek Wilderness, September 25, 2016

Double exposure, fall colors at the Soldier Creek Wilderness, September 2016. (Photo by Daniel Binkard)

During a photography day trip with a friend out to Fort Robinson State Park and the Soldier Creek Wilderness, I found an arrangement that warranted a double exposure with a focus shift.
This is an in-camera version of the technique, where I set the camera to merge two exposures. The first exposure is focused on one plane in the composition, the background tree. The second exposure is focused on the nearer leaves. Because of this focus shift, the unfocused areas create halos of light, shadow, and color, depending on what the elements are, how they are arranged, and how much of a focus shift there is. On a tripod, as this was, I can keep the defocused elements aligned with the their focused counterparts. Handheld, and luck plays a larger role. Naturally, the photographer has plenty of choices to make, and luck will play a part as well, especially if you have leaves or flowers blowing in the breeze.
I first saw this technique in 2014, used by the Norwegian photographer Birna Rørslett, and have been playing with it quite a bit since then.