The In-Camera Multiple Exposure Technique That Turns Forest Photos Into Abstract Art

Multiple exposure photography sits at an interesting intersection of technique and abstraction, and the way you execute it in-camera versus in post produces genuinely different results worth understanding before you commit to one approach.

Coming to you from Adam Gibbs, this hands-on video walks through the full process of creating multiple exposure forest images using a Fujifilm GFX 100S in a Douglas fir forest on the east coast of Vancouver Island. Gibbs shoots nine sequential exposures, shifting the camera upward slightly on the tripod between each one, keeping the strong vertical lines of the trunks consistent while letting the surrounding branches and undergrowth blur into something that reads almost like pointillism. The in-camera stacking produces a JPEG as the final merged file, which Gibbs notes is worth knowing for cameras like the GFX 100S where file sizes are already enormous. The raw files from each individual exposure are preserved alongside it, which opens a separate option entirely.

That second option is where the Photoshop workflow comes in. If your camera doesn't support in-camera multiple exposures, or you want more control over the final look, you can open all the raw frames as layers in Photoshop and adjust opacity and blending modes manually. Gibbs runs through several blend modes including Darken, Multiply, and Color Burn, each producing a noticeably different character in the final image. Bringing opacity down to around 22% on the stacked layers is one starting point, but the right value shifts depending on the scene and how much movement was introduced between frames.

Gibbs also draws a useful distinction between subtle and dramatic movement. With minimal shifts between frames, the result can look like an unintentional blur unless you examine it closely. Larger movements make the abstraction clearly intentional and visually distinct. He also demonstrates what happens when you move the camera horizontally instead of vertically through a scene with strong upright trees: the result loses its compositional anchor and reads as noise. The technique works because the camera movement follows the dominant line in the scene, whether that's vertical, horizontal, or diagonal. Trees are a natural fit because of that strong axis, but the principle applies to any subject with a clear graphic structure. Gibbs also points out that because you're capturing nine individual raw frames anyway, if the composition and light work without any stacking, you still have a clean single-exposure shot to use.

Check out the video above for the full rundown from Gibbs, including the complete Photoshop walkthrough and his side-by-side comparisons of subtle versus dramatic movement results.