“I walked in a dream…”

Click here for a larger view            Photo and narrative by Winston “Rocky” Rockwell.

Sometimes, as photographers, we get so wrapped up in the techniques and technology of cameras and lenses and focusing and composition, that we forget that photography is, ultimately, an art form, a medium through which we share our vision of the world around us with our audiences. As a painter creates his work with brushes and pigments, we “paint” with light.

One of the more interesting and artistic techniques in digital photo processing is called the “Orton Effect”, in honor of Vancouver Island photographer Michael Orton, who first perfected the technique using slide film. He would take two exposures, one sharply focused, the other blurred, then combine the two slides prior to printing, to produce a soft, dreamlike, and very artistic image. With digital photo processing, we can pretty much duplicate Michael Orton’s original slide technique in Photoshop, and with a few keystrokes, we can create the same ethereal-looking results.

“Orton images” are not everyone’s cup of tea; some people find them too manipulated, and some purists will even argue that they are no longer really even photographs. But like I said, photography is an art form, and every once in a while, it’s nice to let the artist in all of us out to play. After all, how many great works would ever have been created if the artists always followed the same formula every time? An occasional foray into a different aspect of our hobby keeps our creative spirit fresh and reminds us that after all is said and done, we are striving to create beauty, and it really matters very little how we go about it if we get the result we want.

The original photograph of autumn colors near Twisp, Washington, was taken using a Canon 40D with a Tamron SP17-35 lens at17mm, 1/4 second at f/13. Three frames were shot at +1/0/-1 stop from nominal and processed using Photomatix Pro to produce an HDR image. That image was then processed using Photoshop to simulate an “Orton slide sandwich”, producing this soft, dream-like image.

More of my images can be seen at www.northwestnaturalimagery.com.