One From One Hundred

The Other Extreme

30 Exposures - One Photo

When yesterday was a deliberate and dedicated moment to make a photo in a span of a few seconds, today is radically different. Reflecting on yesterday's quick succession of shots, today's project at State and Main represented a radical departure in both method and ambition.

Yesterday I made seven frames in 15 seconds.

The photo above is a 30-exposure multiple exposure. I made about 100 multiple 10-exposure photos in 22 minutes at State and Main beginning a few minutes after sunset. Technically, that’s about 1,000 exposures. I shot that many because I couldn’t control traffic or pedestrians and never knew which way or how fast either would be moving. People and cars often didn’t travel as I had planned.

It's a common misconception among people that upon seeing a camera pointed their way, they should move aside to not obstruct the view. Unbeknownst to them, they are, in fact, the intended subjects.

If you see a photographer pointing a camera in your general direction, pretend you don’t see them and continue on your way. You may be the most important part of the photo. You may be the photo.

The project involved creating a 30-exposure photograph by blending three sets of 10 exposures each, utilizing Photoshop for alignment and blending. This technical process aimed to capture the dynamic activity of State and Main post-sunset.

The final result is three 10-exposure photos blended from separate layers in Photoshop. Photoshop has a script that will automatically align similar objects in separate layers placing the layers on top of each other in near perfect alignment. A second script blends them into a single layer combining the tones and colors of each frame into a new layer. This is perfect for multiple exposures of the same subject which was my object tonight.

Once blended into a final layer, it can be edited as a Smart Object in Photoshop using masks and plugins to get the final look.

I deliberately chose not to use a tripod, aiming to capture the frenetic activity at State and Main in a way that sharpness and perfect alignment could not convey. This allowed me to embrace the misalignment, blurred subjects, and the camera's shaky movement as integral to match the collection of experience of standing at a busy intersection anxiously waiting for travel to stop for a safe crossing.

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