April wandering

Some of this and a little of that

This month’s wandering included a fair amount of multiple-exposure photography. I did take advantage of an additional storm day to capture more abstracted waves (I particularly like the triptych below) and I made colour streetscape images as I walked around town. Eventually however, I switched to making in-camera double exposures. 

Initially the double exposures happened around my local neighbourhood. With the exception of the portrait of Dave below, I wasn’t that thrilled with what I was making. I find that including people in the shots makes for more interesting results and I just wasn’t getting the opportunity to include people. That is until I was at a local beach where there were lots of people (and dogs and one rabbit). When I switched to a monotone film simulation and started to combine people shots with images of the environment, the results definitely improved. 

I have been making in-camera multiple exposures with Fujifilm x-series cameras since the original X-Pro 1. My process has remained largely unchanged since then, in that I only use the fully-baked JPEG photos, so whatever I get in camera is what I get. If the exposure doesn’t work in camera, I am not interested in spending time in Photoshop to create a composite image. I do find that using a zoom lens for multiple exposure photography gives you more flexibility in playing with scale, which adds something to the images.

Most modern digital cameras have the ability to make multiple exposures and certainly nearly all film cameras have the capability too. So, by all means, give it a try. 

Until next month…

A note about this image: I made this double exposure of my former work colleague Dave, as I was walking through Fernwood. I photographed Dave first and then turned to look toward Fernwood square, where he was framed by the buildings in the late-day light. This is my favourite type of multiple exposure, combining a person with the place I associate with them into one image.

While on the beach shooting multiple exposures, I happened upon a volleyball tournament. The situation didn’t lend itself to making multiple exposures, so I simply documented the action with a very graphic black-and-white film simulation.

NB: Photos captured with Fujifilm X or GFX cameras, fronted with Fujinon lenses. As mentioned above, all double exposures were captured in camera.