Work Diary - Multiple Exposure

Shoot Evaluation:

In today's lesson awe looked at the technique multiple exposure.  I personally really liked this technique and felt there was a lot it offer to me in my work.  I found the technique, though effective, easily went 'wrong'.  By this I mean, for example, if I took more than four photos for one final image the exposure had faded out so much you couldn't really see clearly (if at all) the subject you were photographing.  Another issue I had was keeping continuity in some of the shots.  If I moved myself or the camera or changed the zoom the background sometimes changed so much it made the final image unidentifiable and the subject got lost in amongst everything.

The positives I found in this technique though is the different effects the technique can offer.  I likes the element of movement it can add to a still photo and the way you could potentially photograph a series of events or an event happening in one shot.

Here are a couple of photos from my shoot today:

This is one of the photos I particularly liked.  I used a corridor and a friend from class to photograph her 'walking' down the corridor.  I positioned her in different areas of the corridor when taking the photo by i myself remained in the same place.  I like the way the photos fade out the closer you get toward the camera and the way it imitates the passing of time in the photo.

 This is another photo that I am not so fond of from today's shoot.  I like the idea that I had but it didn't quite go to plan and I think this is because of how I executed it.  The idea was meant to be photographing my friend from class sitting in one chair, and then in every shot after her moving one more chair along till she reached the last chair.  However, I think where I moved my hand during the shoot the photo became too 'blurred' together as the background is so similar everywhere in the image and you actually have lost my subject.  I think this shot would have worked better if i had have used a tripod.


To improve on this technique and experience its full potential I need to do some more experimenting with it.  I would quite like to do some work in the studio with this technique and have a look at combining more complex shoot ideas with this technique to show a more varied and professional finish to my final pieces.  I think using equipment such a tripod could help me to achieve a better standard of work and also able me to execute my ideas more accurately.


How I could apply this technique in my personal project:

I really liked the multiple exposure technique that I experimented with today.  I like the contemporary feel the technique gives and potential to create lots of different effects in one image.  For my personal project where I am looking at makeup I think this technique poses a good chance for me to create a really ultramodern piece of work with the influence of contemporary make-up art.  I am thinking of using materials such as powder paint which I could 'throw' over a model and capture.  The models face would be primed with sfx glue that the paint could stick to in certain areas and then I could proceed in the shoot by then photographing this.  I think capturing the movement of the paint would be a really nice way of using multiple imagery.

Another similar idea I had was using regular paint and powder paint a throw this over my subject in different colours and directions and capture each one in movement, then finishing with my model still covered in the paint.  This idea would definitely require me using a tripod to ensure the camera remained in the same place at all times and then model would need to do the same too.  I would want a sterile background so all that would be noticeable/the focal point of the photo would be the paint.