Typically I don’t do double-exposure photography of any type, neither ones created “in camera” nor ones created by combining photos later on the computer. However, our photography group here recently picked Double-Exposures as our theme for the next meeting. It’s the second type a group theme has been inspired by some work by American photographer Imogen Cunningham. Cunningham did some memorable double-exposures work during her career; click here to see examples of her work.

In Imogen Cunningham’s day she either did this kind of photo in the darkroom or created the double-exposure when taking the photos with a film camera. For those of you who ever used a film camera, you may recall that most film cameras did not automatically advance the film once you took a photo. Instead, there was a lever you used to manually move the film forward after you took a photo.  If you didn’t advance the film, the next photo would be taken “on top” of the first one, creating an image with two exposures in one photo, i.e. a “double-exposure.”

With a digital camera, you’re not literally advancing the film, of course. When you take a photo, the camera automatically resets itself so that the next photo is recorded separately from the first. So, to take a double-exposure in your digital camera, you need a camera that includes a setting that allows you to do that. As it turns out, not all digital cameras have that capability. But, you can get the same effect by knowing out to combine the two photos together on the computer – this mimics what a 20th century photographer like Imogen Cunningham would have done in the darkroom.

While I already know how to combine images on the computer (although rarely doing it), I wasn’t quite sure what was involved with trying to do a double-exposure in the camera.  I don’t recall ever having done this deliberately years ago with film, although it is possible I did that accidentally once or twice. 😉

Anyway, one of my digital cameras, a Nikon D90, does have a setting that allows you to do a double-exposure. It was intriguing to figure out how one goes about setting up the two shots without being able to see the first one while you’re taking the second one, which would have been a handy feature that is available on some other digital cameras (e.g. Chris’ camera allowed him to line up the second shot while viewing a preview of the first one). However, my digital camera experience more closely mirrored that of using a film camera. Except that I could immediately see the results of my efforts once I’d taken the double-exposure, and, upon seeing there was a problem with how it came out, I could immediately try again. Not so for Cunningham, et al.,  which makes all their accomplishments for any double-exposures taken “in camera” even more astonishing.

But it was fun to experiment a bit with this idea. I think for me, if I want to do more with double-exposures, I may do it more in my digital darkroom than in the camera, since I can combine things better when I can see what I am working with.

Anyway, the first 6 photos below are shots that represent my initial experiments using some standard ideas of double exposure.

But then consider the next to the last photo in this set. In reality, the plants were not actually under water as they appear to be in the photo. Rather, the photo is the result of a double-exposure, using plant life seen on the river bank taken in combination with the pattern of water on the river. A beautiful in-camera double-exposure that doesn’t seem like it’s a double-exposure. Now there’s a really intriguing idea to try again at some point.

You’ll note that I liked that photo so well I found it a prime candidate for flipping – that’s what you see in the last photo.