Ghosts

I went down to London today, determined to make the most of the beautiful weather. I started at the British Library (I wanted to see the new exhibition on the Georgians -well worth it) before working my way down to Trafalgar square, via Covent Garden and Leicester square.

I reached Trafalgar Square around lunch time and watched a lot of ex-servicemen and women (complete with medals) strolling around. They were clearly still coming up from Pall Mall and there was quite a police presence round by Admiralty Arch.

And so to my blip - I have been keen to try layering shots to create 'ghost' effects for a while now and Trafalgar square seemed to offer the best opportunity: lovely afternoon light, lots of people and solid balustrades on which to brace my arms. (No tripod today!)

The devil was in the detail processing wise. I only had a vague idea of how to do this and found that the standard 'focus stack' approach doesn't work. Don't auto-blend - the layers. It doesn't work! Once I sussed this out I spent ages finicking with layer opacities and various settings - et voila!

I have a sneaking suspicion that I could have achieved the same effect, possibly more easily, if I'd had my tripod and big stopper with me. But I probably wouldn't have had so much fun/learnt so much...