HAVING FUN WITH MULTIPLE EXPOSURES

A previous article discussed intentional camera movement (ICM). This article is about intentional multiple exposures. These actions can spur a photographer’s creative side and can result in very interesting images. When you have finished your planned compositions and your buddies are still shooting, look around for opportunities to experiment. This may even get you out of a photographer's funk.

When film cameras were our only choice, double exposures occasionally would occur by accident. Some very simple cameras could still take an image when you forgot to wind the film to the next frame. More sophisticated cameras would not take a second image until you would the camera, but they often had a button you could hold down to give a fake advance of the film. This was the beginning of intentional multiple exposures. I remember using this technique in the early 1970’s to put a rainbow in the same image as an Apache woman looking up to the sky.

Most advanced modern digital cameras have a setting that allows the photographer to use certain steps to create multiple exposures. This can be just two exposures for a single image, but it can also be about as many exposures as you might want. 

Cameras that have a live view screen on the back allow you to visualize the result as you add exposures to a single frame by overlaying what the camera sees on top of the previous capture.

I used this technique on the below landscape photo. This location in Colorado is known as the “Drunken Aspens” because they grow at a lot of different angles. With this rendition I felt like the drunken photographer. 

Abstract scenes can work well with multiple exposures. The image on the left was my original abstract image. I decided to take it again as a double exposure with a rippled water surface. The next image shows the result.

For the next two images, I was standing on a pier shooting down at an angle toward the water in the swamp at Caddo Lake. Both images include the reflection in the pond of a tree without leaves but with lots of hanging Spanish moss.  I turned the camera around 180˚ so the reflection looked upright. Then the salvinia in the water was exposed for the lower left image. For the lower right image, I faced a different direction and got much different colors with the lily pads.

Some other landscape scenes that work well with in-camera double exposures are mountain silhouettes and beaches, with or without sea stacks in the water. It works best to not have too much detail. Try this when there is not a lot of interest and the scene is fairly simple.

Botanicals and florals are an area where multiple exposures can be very effective. Look for textures that can overlap the small scene. Take the texture first, then expose the main subject. Because were on a timed visit to Lotus Land in Montecito, California, time and location demands meant I had to combine separate images in Photoshop. This may be your only choice when the desired texture and main subject aren't near to each other and time is limited. Creating the images in the field can be more rewarding and an excellent diversion from your regular landscape photography.

A similar combined Photoshop technique requires multiple exposures as you walk around the subject, capturing it from different angles. This technique is called Pep Ventosa after its originator. In this case, I had searched for a colorful smoke tree in the local desert. The right tree would have to be in the open so I could walk around it. While it might be possible to create a similar result in camera, more control is possible by combining the images in Photoshop. For this result, I took eight exposures, one for every 45 degrees I moved around the tree. The photographer should try to keep the base of the tree in the same position in the frame. To do this, it is helpful to use a guide on your view screen. 

Then open the eight images as layers in Photoshop. Put your best layer on the bottom. With eight layers, adjust each layer to show about 12.5 percent. You don’t have to be perfect with this. Reduce the percentage displayed of layers that seem to detract from the result. This will let the bottom layer show through more. It should be left at 100 percent. Continue to adjust the layers to achieve the look you want. 

Because this smoke tree was surrounded by buildings, I created a more pleasing sky and background by combining other desert images, masking what away the parts of the background that I didn’t want. If you know of a smoke tree all by itself out in the middle of the desert, please let me know about it!

Still life photographers can use a modified Pep Ventosa technique in the studio. Place your subject, such as a vase of flowers, on a turntable and place your camera on a tripod. Use a backdrop of your choosing. Rotate the turntable 45˚ to 90˚ between each exposure. Experiment with the best amount of rotation.

Photographing people can also make for some interesting multiple exposures. For example, wedding photographers often photograph a profile silhouette of a groom then place the second exposure of the bride in the middle of his head. It is possible to create ghosts on an image by having one exposure with a person in it then taking the second exposure without the person. To avoid background movement, this is done on a tripod. Multiple exposures would allow you to have the person move to different positions in the frame. Perhaps this would look good with a dancer.

Smartphones can be used for multiple exposures, but with some difficulty. Some android phones have this ability built in. For others, including i-phones you will need to use an app like Snapseed. The process is too difficult to describe here, so if you are interested, do a search on YouTube.

Multiple exposure functions are found on the many advanced digital cameras. Notably, the Sony A7R series does not have this feature. Canon 5 cameras and Nikon Z cameras ask you to set the number of exposures that you will combine. You can stop short of the number you set if you wish. Fujifilm cameras allow you to keep adding exposures until you are done. 

The multiple exposure setting is found under the menu’s camera icon. After selecting this icon you may be given a choice between additive, average, darken or lighten settings. These settings work much like those same blending modes in Photoshop. For each pixel the camera will automatically combine the exposures to give one finished image.

For most situations “Average” works well, giving an equal amount of emphasis to each exposure. With Average selected, the camera will make adjustments to the finished image to give a properly exposed result, assuming you started with proper exposures.

You may find the “Additive” mode more useful for your creative results. Instead of the camera giving equal balance to the exposures, it is up to you to make the decision on how much to expose each frame. But remember that when adding two together, you will always be creating darker pixels. You should underexpose each capture to allow for this. If you want to give equal credit to each, you will expose them the same. But you might want to give two-thirds weight to one layer and one-third weight to the other. So you would underexpose the first layer by 1/3 stop and underexpose the second layer by 2/3 stop.

The "Dark" mode selects just the darkest pixel of two overlapping layers. This will result in a darker result than what you are seeing, so you might want to slightly overexpose to start with when using the Dark selection. "Light" does the opposite. It selects the lighter pixel from each overlapping layer. Expect to end up with high key images. Also, both of these settings result in some color balance shifts, so you may find unexpected colors in your result. Experiment!

It should be noted that you can change your settings between exposures. This may allow you to use intentional camera movement, perhaps also requiring an ND filter. 

In addition to looking for textures as suggested earlier in the article, you may wish to stick with a single subject for your multiple exposures. Try any of these techniques:

Using intentional camera movement on one or both layers

• Rotate the camera
• Move closer to or farther from your subject
• Take the second image out of focus

In the set of images below you will see how these actions might affect the appearance of the final result. The first image (upper left) is a single exposure of an artificial flower. The second image (upper right) is a double exposure with the camera rotated slightly. The third image (lower left) is a double exposure where I moved closer but kept focus for the second exposure. The fourth image (lower right) is a double exposure where I moved in but kept the second image out of focus. Another option that might yield a similar result would be to use intentional camera movement for the second exposure. In bright light it would be necessary to add an ND filter prior to the second exposure. It is easy to work without a tripod for these techniques, but in some instances you might want to use a tripod for more control.

So the next time you are in the field and find extra time on your hands, try out some multiple exposures. This may just get you out of a photographic rut and it will definitely open up a new creative side to your repertoire.