Do you have a photography technique or process that you’re regularly drawn to?
Currently, mine is double exposures. I even own two film cameras that I specifically purchased for their straightforward double exposure capabilities — or so I thought!
It turns out, both of my cameras are a little more temperamental. When attempting double exposures, one camera often locks up resulting in completely black images, and the other regularly produces inconsistent outcomes.
This month, while using an expired roll of Ektar film, I read up on the issues I was having with one of my cameras and decided to give the technique another try. Once again, the results were hit-and-miss. Or, more accurately, they were “one-hit-and-many-misses,” as only one of the images turned out to be a somewhat successful double exposure.
I was a little disappointed with the results, but still eager to explore the technique further, so I decided to experiment with double exposures in another way: by randomly overlaying negatives on a transparency sheet before scanning them onto my computer.
Layering the negatives this way reminded me of the hours I used to spend combining images and textures in Photoshop. Of course, this time, there were constraints — I had no way to check the layered negatives before seeing the final image.
As someone who enjoys experimenting, I found this process to be quite fulfilling. I had achieved a multiple exposure effect in post processing, yet retained the element of surprise similar to what you experience when shooting double exposures in-camera.
A day that started with mild disappointment became a fun, nostalgic afternoon spent layering negatives, scanning them onto my computer, and waiting patiently for the random compositions to emerge.
Have you tried something similar? I’d love to hear what you thought of the process.
l will definitely try this again, perhaps with black and white negatives next time.
Until next time, have fun experimenting.