100% Sheep Double Exposure

[Nicole]

Where Was it Taken?

Wellington, New Zealand in Civic Square outside of the City Gallery.

What settings / gear did you use?

This was taken with my Nikon D90 and the Nikkor 50mm f/1.4. No filters, no flash. I used the multiple exposure function on the D90 with 2 shots. I set my camera to f/5 and the shutter speed was around 1/640 with ISO 200.

Why did you compose the shot as you did?

When I saw the sign on the ground I knew I wanted to do something to bring the sheep and the sign together. I wanted to capture the rows of sheep which were only about 3-4" tall. I opted to put the sheep on a diagonal rather than on straight lines because I thought would look better and create more interest.

The tricky part with using the double exposure function is figuring which shot goes first for the best result. For example, this was my first attempt at taking the shot. You'll notice that the white is much more prominent (not just because I cut out the borders).



This one was taken with the sign picture being taken first then the sheep picture. My preferred version (at the top of the post) was taken with the sheep first and then the sign.

I also realised that including the duct tape along the edge of the sign created a nice border in the double exposure so in the final shot I made sure that I included that.

What post production work have you done on the shot (if any)?

The post-production work was fairly minimal. I cropped it slightly to make the "border" more even on all the sides, and I used the perspective correction in Photoshop to straighten out the rectangle a little, but other than that I increased the exposure a little bit to make sure the whites were more white. Then increased the saturation and vibrance to make the colours of the grass and scarves more noticeable.

What were you hoping to achieve with the shot?

In the end I was hoping to achieve a fun double exposure that used not only the sign but also the sheep. I wanted to do something that used both parts and wanted to see if I could do as much of it as possible in the camera rather than in the post-processing phase. Could I have done this in post-processing? Yep, you bet. Would it have been as fun or as much of a learning experience? Probably not.