Glowing Aspens

There is a technique called "Orton Imagery" that used to be common back in the days of color slide film.  It was invented by a photographer by the last name Orton, a Canadian I believe.  The process consisted of two combined images.  Both were overexposed, but one was in sharp focus and the other deliberately out of focus.  The two slides were mounted together in alignment and when projected, the result was an image with proper exposure, and glowing highlights.  It worked best with minimalist images with good contrast, and not too much detail.  There are plenty of examples on line, and nowadays there is a tool in the Photoshop program that allows this to be recreated with digital images.

Several times I have attempted to replicate this in camera, with black and white slide film.  Mostly it has been unsuccessful, and the "glow" just didn't materialize.  I tried it again recently, and I think I'm getting a little closer to the desired result.  I'm still not getting enough of the glow around the highlights, but I think in this most recent attempt, it shows a little.  This is a shot of some Aspen trunks on my property out at Nordegg.  It was taken when I was out at the cottage in early May.  The trees were in nice morning side light, and the background forest was fairly dark.  I shot this with my 4x5 view camera and a 300mm lens on Kodak T-Max 100 film, developed in 510 Pyro.  It was a double exposure, with the out of focus shot first.  The camera was set deliberately out of focus and a glass diffuser was held in front of the lens for an exposure of 1/8 second at F40.0.  Then I focused the camera and took a second exposure, onto the same sheet of film for 1/2 second at F45.0.  The two exposures added up to what I properly metered with my spot meter.

In hindsight I probably should have given more exposure to the out of focus shot and less to the properly focused one.  I did it the other way around, thinking I needed to hold more detail.  I will attempt it again one of these days, and hopefully get a little closer to what I am trying to achieve.  The next time I am out with my camera and find the right subject, another attempt will be made.