Sandwiching

My parents have hired me to photograph some of the places they have designed for documentary purposes, but hopefully soon for their company website, Scott&Scott Architecture.

I have photographed interiors many times in Florida while I was still on the newspaper staff. But, somehow, this is different. I think maybe Florida had more light in general, and shooting interiors in a large room where there is little light like the one I attempted the other day is quite challenging. There's a reason why architectural photographers get the big bucks. It's like, wicked hard 'n' stuff.

My friend and colleague, TJ, told me about the "sandwiching" technique, used in Photoshop. The premise is that you shoot one picture with the light in a certain place in the very dark room, then your move the light to light another location in the room and shoot another picture. The camera remains on a tripod the whole time. Then, in Photoshop, you sandwich the two images together and viola, you have a perfectly exposed image.

I tried it out the other day and while I had no issues photographically, I could not get the sandwiching to look right in Photoshop. One of the challenges is that I am getting my lesson online from others who have done it and written about it in their blogs.

Like This Guy.

While I did attempt the effect without the blur, I couldn't seem to get it right. I did use the technique from that website to make a funky filter effect out fo a portrait of Oliver though.