Multiple Imagery is a very important part of photography, due to the many different areas that are possible to explore surrounding the subject. I choose to look at many different forms of multiple imagery such as the basic multiple imagery concept that consists of simply placing one image on top of another. You can also choose to look more deeply into this technique through the use of techniques such as multiple exposures and multiple flash, that can also create really intriguing images when you are shooting. There is a lot that you can do with multiple imagery and it gives your photography work a completely different look that if you were to just simply take photos of whatever is in front of the lens. It adds more dimension to the images being taken and adds an advanced and developed flare that would otherwise be hard to capture. Many different ideas can be captured through the use of multiple imagery that can affect society and the issues involved. It can also represent these key issues in order to present important matters in more detailed ways. You can show emotion and expression really well through various forms of multiple imagery which is a key factor when understanding multiple imagery in all of it's form. I think that multiple imagery photography, is a lot more than meets to eye. When you first look at multiple imagery images, you can simply see a lot of images on top of one another. Whereas, when you begin to deconstruct these images, you get a much deeper idea of what the photograph is actually trying to portray. This is what I love about the general idea behind multiple imagery photography. These are a few examples of the types of work that include multiple imagery as a technique in photography.
History of Multiple Imagery Photography
Over the years, I think the idea of multiple imagery has developed greatly as what it is perceived to be. To me, the idea of multiple imagery consists of more than one images put together in many different interesting and unique ways to create one mesmerising looking image. At the beginning of it development, multiple imagery was merely an accident when two images were taken on the same piece of film in an analog camera, thus multiple imagery in photography was born. One of the first uses of multiple imagery and multiple exposure in particular, was through creating ghostly hoaxes to fool people into believing that there were people or objects in an image when they aren't originally meant to be there. This was probably one of the first uses of multiple imagery photography, projecting to a wide scale audience. Over time, the idea of what could be created through multiple imagery, was going to develop a great deal. I think that it's fait to say that some of the world's first photographic cameras would not have been able to create multiple imagery photos straight of the bat.
As more and more people began to understand the fundamentals of photography as a whole, the features of multiple imagery photography would have also taken off. With the understanding of aperture and exposures in photography slowly increasing, people began to understand that the longer you leave certain aspects open, the more people would have been able to realise that they can create a multitude of multiple imagery photographs, looking at multiple exposure development in particular.
2 Current Practitioners of Multiple Imagery Photography
Aneta Ivanova
One particular practitioner that I have looked a lot at, is Aneta Ivanova. She mainly focus on the work of multiple exposures, which I think is a brilliant way to show multiple imagery, as it is more interesting to look at and you can create some really nice looking pieces of work. After looking into a lot of her work and noticing the similarities between different images, I think that she has a very defined and unique way of presenting her work to appeal to a multitude of audiences. Ivanova is aged 21 and was born in Varna, Bulgaria, which is some sense would have made it harder to branch out into a wide scale, professional photographic career, due to Bulgaria being quite a small country. She started looking into photography at the age of 13 and has continued to work on developing her skills ever since. She began shooting experimental self-portraiture in her home and eventually came across the techniques of fine art and fashion photography, which has influenced her greatly in her work throughout the years. She is open to branch out into other types of photography work in order to broaden her perspective and to work with new people. Overall, her work consists of different types of multiple exposure techniques in order to make her work look more unique and interesting.
As a whole, I have been extremely inspired by the work that she has created, throughout all of her individual portfolios. Despite her having a clear interest in multiple exposures, focusing the majority of her work around that technique, she also experiments a lot with other types of multiple imagery techniques that allow her to develop her portfolios and make for a much more advanced project of photographs. One of these techniques, involves simply overlapping a variety of different images to make for a beautiful looking image that has an edge amongst other images. I guess these images that she creates, is also a type of multiple exposure, except they are translated in a different way through the way that she has shot the images.
Most of the multiple exposure images that she has created are a part of multiple imagery in the modern world, looking at highly unique methods and putting her own personal stamp on the images that she creates. This is some of my most favourite pieces of work that she has created.
This image is one of Ivanova's newest creations and as soon as I saw it, it highly stood out to me. I love the way that she has managed to convey he idea that beneath the surface of the water is unknown, much like the mind. Whether she intended to create this idea or not is beyond me, but I still think that this is what the overall image is portraying the the audience. In regards to multiple imagery, I love the way that she has put together the two separate images, with completely different colour schemes, managing to make them work perfectly together. The blues and the greens from the water have mixed with the simple, pale colours of the models face, which is what I think has made for a truly beautiful image.
This is another one of her newest pieces of work, which is highlighting how her work is continuing to develop and she becomes more advanced in the editing side of her images. I love the way that she has managed to make it look like the birds are literally flying off of the back of her head, as I can imagine this would simply be impossible to capture if she were to use a different method of photography to multiple imagery. I would imagine that she would of had to get many images of birds in order to create this image, which suggests that it is more than a simple double exposure, much like the images she has created in the past. There is a lot more depth to this image which I think conveys extremely well.
This has always been one of my favourite images by Ivanova as I think that there is a lot unknown behind the image. The top of the head, looks was though it is a book being opened and released, which I think owes much to the idea of the mind having a lot of depth to it. She has put this image together extremely well, in order to show to a high standard and a professional level, how the mind works in strange ways. This idea of multiple imagery through multiple exposure, is fairly basic, however the simple images that have been put together have created a capturing image.
This is one of the images that represents a different type of multiple exposure. The general multiple exposure image consists of at least one of the images having a plain white background so that the other image can simply overlap the other. This image however, has a different type of technique to it, with the two images being their own and very simply just placed over one another. This in some ways, is a lot more effective as it means that we can see the expression and body language of each of the photos alongside one another.
This is another one of my favourite images by Ivanova, as I love the different type of multiple exposure technique that she has used. The simple overlapping of two very visually stunning images has been designed to create an image that is going to capture an audience. This image has down exactly that. The beauty of the model along with the beauty of the sky or sea in the background has made this image stunning in it's own unique way.
Jerry Uelsmann
I looked a lot into the individual work of many photographers and Jerry Uelsmann, along with the work of Thomas Barbey, inspired me to try and create some surrealistic photographs. Born in Detroit, 1934, you could say that Uelsmann was one of the first photographer to truly experiment with the idea of multiple imagery regarding surrealism. Over his years of photography, he has experimented with a wide variety of different techniques and has worked with many different companies over the years. As a whole, his work has transformed the idea of surrealism, incorporating the multiple imagery technique in order to manipulate his images. In this sense, his images can appeal to a wide variety of audiences with his images having great deal of depth in them.
Most photographers, looking at multiple imagery, would simply focus on the basic ideas and techniques such as overlapping, multiple exposures and overlay. Whereas Uelsmann has developed a very advanced form of editing in order to expand what is known as multiple imagery, which is one of the main reasons Jerry Uelsmann has become a well known professional photographer. He pushes the boundaries of what is normal and gets the audience to think more about the type of image that is being shown, which to me is what photography is all about, especially when thinking and looking at ideas of multiple imagery.
We can see that in this image, Uelsmann has focused on three separate images to form this capturing image. The use of the droplet in the middle of the hands, that are placed over a lake makes you look deeper into the image, trying o work out why it could have been placed here. Through the use of multiple imagery he has been able to make you think a lot more about the story behind the image rather than just simply thinking it is nice to look at. To me it would seem as though he has tried to show that the hands are holding the water from the lake that we can clearly see. He has shown this through making the water on the lake a lot darker than it should be
This was one of the first images that I saw of Uelsmann's and I have been captured by it since. All of the elements in the image are so surrealistic that it makes you think about what it could possibly mean. The tree floating in the background particularly appeals to me when looking at this image as it would seem that each tree has a sort of separate floating island, which make or may not have some sort of significance to the photographer.
This image got me from the moment I looked at it. The fact that Uelsmann has managed to make it look as though there is something falling from the sky, which in turn is made up of it's own water, made me think a lot about the meaning of the images. I think that he was trying to signify that there is a lot more under the water than we first think. The use of the water flowing underneath eh water surface, is another surrealistic idea that I thought was interesting. Multiple imagery in this particular photograph has created an environment that depicts an idea that a lot of people think about regarding below the surface of the water.
This has got to be my favourite photograph visually to simply look at. I think it is because it has so many different elements to it that make you think a lot more about what it means. There are at least 2 or 3 different images here, that all blend very effortlessly together, through the editing techniques of multiple imagery. The surrealism in this image is very real, as it looks as though the hands are growing out of the tree, which is an idea that is somewhat strange, but also creates a very eye capturing picture.
My Own Work
A lot of my own individual work has been highly inspired by the work of the photographers that I have looked at. To me, it was important that I looked at a number of different photographers for inspiration along the way, so that I had a greater understanding of the type of photography that I could experiment with. I already had some very simple ideas, with others being more developed and I thought that it would be a good idea to look at some other photographers to gain a better understanding of multiple imagery, also finding out ideas that I hadn't thought of. Even though a lot of my work has been my own ideas, I still think that a lot of my photoshoots have been a highly inspired by photographers work as I get a lot of good ideas that I interpret in my own ways. This is a good way of interpreting photography as looking at others work gives me a greater understanding of multiple imagery as a whole. I have also looked at other students work to see if the ideas that I have are similar and if they are, how they have developed it to work as their own.
This was one of the first shoots that I did and I am really happy with the way that I managed to get the idea of multiple exposure across. As I see multiple exposure as one of the most interesting and exciting forms of multiple imagery, I was very impressed with the simple image that I was able to create. I think that my work, through this picture, captures what multiple imagery is about, as the two images blend together effortlessly.
The Future of Multiple Imagery Photography
I think that the future of multiple imagery photography is going to become a lot easier than it currently is, especially when in the actual camera process. At the moment, you can take multiple exposures within the camera settings, however, this feature is not available to all cameras. For example, my own personal camera does not support this feature of multiple exposure, however the cameras that we use at college, have the feature. Even though this does clearly not present an issue, I would like to be able to create multiple exposures at home as there is more that I can take photos of. In regards to the future of this idea, they have recently created and are working on further developing, instant cameras that have the feature of multiple exposures to make it easier for people to get multiple imagery photographs. The creators, Fujifilm, have taken the old design and incorporated new features, in the hopes to appeal to the older audiences and also the younger ones, with the newer up to date aspects that they can play with.
Here are some examples of the instant photographs that you can take, using the new features that are available on these new and improved instant cameras. If this is what has already been developed over the years, then the future of multiple imagery photography can only become more accessible. This itself can be further developed. This camera can only produce double exposures, however they could expand and make it so that it is able to create multiple exposure consisting of more than 2 images.
As a whole, I think that the future of multiple imagery photography is going to become a lot simpler to create more advanced multiple exposures. Photoshop will most likely begin to work on developing a feature much more developed that the simple blend and overlay modes, so that beginners can also create more interesting and unique images.
Conclusion
All in all, I think that multiple imagery photography has become a very popular and widely used part of photography. The ideas surrounding many different topics that are important in everyday society are presented through various forms of multiple imagery, especially focusing on the ideas of surrealism, that tend to look at very deep and meaningful ideas. Multiple exposure as a form of multiple imagery has got to be one of the most interesting to look at as I think that there is a lot to develop and look into. Multiple exposure as a whole, is more of a visual topic as it usually involves a subject (person or animal) long with man made or natural environments to combine with it, sometimes containing both man made and natural into one image. This is why I think that multiple imagery can be both impactful and simply beautiful to look at, at the same time. There is a lot of depth in multiple imagery photography that I think is important and will continue to be important as the world of photography as a whole will develop.
Bibliography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_exposure
http://www.fujifilm.com/products/instant_photo/cameras/instax_mini_8/
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