In the field of photography, double exposure is a technique in which a piece of film is exposed twice, resulting in two different images. The resulting photographic image shows the second image superimposed over the first. This technique can be used to create ghostly images or to add people and objects onto a scene which was not originally there.
It is frequently used in photographic hoaxes by which to deceive the viewer. It is also sometimes used as an artistic visual effect, especially when filming singers or musicians.
In such cases it is considered easiest to have a manual winding camera for double exposures. On automatic winding cameras, as soon as a picture is taken the film is typically wound to the next frame. Some more advanced automatic winding cameras have the option for multiple exposures but it must be set before making each exposure. Manual winding cameras with a multiple exposure feature can be set to double-expose after making the first exposure.
Shooting multiple exposures will expose the same frame multiple times, negative exposure compensation must first be set to avoid overexposure. Medium to low light is ideal for double exposures. More than two exposures can be combined, with care not to overexpose the film.
Digital photographs can be superimposed by using a software photo editor such as Adobe Photoshop or GIMP, by altering the opacity of the two images and line them up over each other, or set the layers to multiply mode, which ‘adds’ the colors together rather than making the colors of either image pale and translucent.
With traditional film cameras, a long exposure is a single exposure, whereas with electronic cameras a long exposure can be obtained by integrating together many exposures. The widespread use of double exposure photography over the years has taken on a dimension of its own, and with some imagination on the photographers part, much can be created out of multiple images – such as collages , fantasy images , etc. limitations as to how far one can go and how creative one can be with such image effects are only bound by one’s imagination.
Below we have comprised a collective of superimposed images which may inspire you to experiment with your very own photographic images. Enjoy !
