The orton effect

The orton effect involves one out of focus and one in focus image sandwiched together that gives us a glowing effect. This technique was first used by Michael  Orton. He used one sharp image overexposed by two stops and the other out of focus imaged overexposed by one stop and clubbed them together as a single image.

The results are stunning.

This image,

Becomes this,

when the orton effect is uesed.

The steps for achieving this will be discussed in  the next post.

Cross processing - a few examples

Cross  processing is  devoloping the films deliberately in wrong/different chemicals that result in variation of colors and contrasts that are not naturally found on  the location. In the digital age cross processing can produce a lot of interesting effects and appearances not possible otherwise.

For example giving a vintage look to an old building, a haunted look  to a deserted one or just make a simple photograph look very interesting can all be done when we understand the basis of cross processing in  digital photography.

Lets see a few examples of cross processed images now. In a later post we will discuss how to bring about these effects using photo editing softwares.

Building the basics - The exposure triangle

Okay, so lets get  started right away and do some learning. Lets begin from the basics, the most common topic being Exposure...

First lets see if we can answer some questions...

How is a picture recorded? What happens when u release your shutter button?

A Photograph is light recorded on a light sensitive film/sensor.When the shutter button is pressed, light enters the camera through an opening called the aperture for a duration of  as long as a window  called shutter is kept open by you pressing the shutter button and falls on to the sensor. This leads us to the factors that affect the light entering the camera and eventually  the picture that is recorded.

1. The size of  the opening in the lens
2. The duration for which the shutter in the camera is open, and
3. The sensitivity of the material (sensor/film) that records the incoming light.

And these translate into the technical terms/values of

1. Aperture value
2. Shutter speed
3. ISO

These will be the prime factors that will affect the exposure.

Now lets see how they balance the exposure

When we have a big aperture opening, it means we have more light coming in and we balance this with faster shutter speeds or by  opening the shutter fora short duration of time.

Conversely when you set your aperture  to be a small opening, you  open up the shutter for a longer duration of time to  let  in the same aount of light.

With these two in place,the third factor is the ISO which can also be adjusted to define how sensitive the sensor  is going to be to the light. A larger number means it is more sensitive to light and smaller number means it is less sensitive to light.

So, these three values  together determine how much light enters the camera and how it gets recorded on the  sensor. We'll dicuss more  about these factors and what else they mean in the coming blogs.