Double exposure on black and white film

So there I was, with 2 more rolls of Ultrafine Extreme 100, which I didn't particularly care for after exposing one roll. Or maybe I don't know how to take the best advantage of it. I'd been thinking about swapping it with a buddy, but then the idea of double exposures came to me. Nothing really lost if it didn't work, and since I wanted to take one of the cameras for a walk anyway... 

I'm pretty sure that anyone reading this knows what a double exposure is all about, but a brief digression for those that don't know. There you are happily taking photos, and you forget to advance the film after taking a shot. The film gets exposed twice, and depending on exactly what the subjects are and how they're aligned, you'll see parts of both images. The result can be a hot mess, or it can be remarkable. 

1. Here's a nice example. I first exposed the tree, then Michelle was later. The tree trunk hadn't been exposed to much light, so when I did the second exposure the light bouncing off Michelle was captured by the relatively unexposed film, so we see both layers.

In an ideal world, or when it's done by someone that really knows what they're doing, the two layers complement each other. It adds some complexity and ought to make the photo more interesting to look at. Sort of like how a photo with a reflection is better than a photo of that subject without a reflection. Part of the fun is the unexpected. The happy accidents or coincidences, as you will see. Doing this with expired film, or a camera that has light leaks, or using a vintage lens, or developing the film with unusual chemicals all add to the unexpected.

In the digital world there are several ways of doing this. Photoshop comes to mind, but many cameras let you choose how many exposures will overlap. The advantage is you can see your results on the back of the camera, and try again if you don't like it. The disadvantage is you have to do it all in sequence, so there's a problem if the background is one place, and you want to capture your subject in a different place. Let's not even talk about arcane camera menu systems.

Attentive readers will remember I did this on film. There is no seeing what an exposure looks like. I went out and captured 36 photos of random things, usually dark things, often trees, just because they were about the only dark things outside on a bright snowy day. But there were a couple garage doors, the side of a retaining wall, car windows, a garbage can, a bus stop bench, a chalkboard, a blanket. It almost doesn't matter what the background layer is. I was aiming to have the centre fairly dark, intending to put Michelle there.

Generally camera manufacturers want to make things easy for the consumer and prevent them from doing things wrong. For them, a double exposure is by definition wrong, so they design cameras that prevent mistakes. For example, it would be extremely difficult to do double exposures on my GW690. The camera makes you wind the film to the next frame before the shutter button unlocks. To do a double exposure I'd have to expose the roll, then go into a completely dark room to wind the film back onto the original spool, making sure the backing paper doesn't separate, and that it's wound tightly onto the original spool. Then load the camera again. At least the loading can happen in light, and then you'll be able to align the arrow on the film backing with a marking in the camera so the frames align. That's a lot of work, and I can't see myself doing that.

Instead, I'm using my EOS-3 camera. It rewinds the film leaving the leader out. Open the camera, and load that same roll of film again. There's a little marker to pull the leader to, which means the frames will be nearly exactly aligned. Close the camera, there's a click and whir, and the first frame is ready to go. No muss, no fuss.

A couple days later I collected Michelle and we went for a walk. I did not take any notes on what the first layer was for this first roll. There was no planning to think the first layer is this, so the pose should be that, placed here in the frame. I did the exposures like I normally did, none of this doing half the exposure since it will be exposed twice. The theory is that by and large, you're exposing different parts of the negative.

We just treated it like a fun portrait session, trying some different things, with different backgrounds. We've done several of these and they've all been fun. She is an amazing model. If you haven't been following along, here's a gallery of other photos I've taken of her. At one point we had a couple of older men in powered mobility scooters watching. Michelle commented that she thought they might be waiting to see if she was going to take her blouse off. Not. It was a sunny day, but still much too cold for that sort of thing, even if we were into it.

We finished off that first roll and zoomed home to have lunch. (Gluten free bison lasagne from Soffrito, in case you're wondering.) Then down into Fish Creek with a new roll of film. Again, mostly random background photos, although there were a few we made a few mental notes about the frame number, and possible poses to layer on top. 

For this first time I was thinking that if I got one frame that worked out of the 72 exposures, I'd be happy. After all, it's a new thing, working totally blind. Some of them were a hot mess, but about half worked out well enough to make a pass at editing. Interestingly enough, the ones I edited are evenly split between the first and second roll. Dust spots weren't much of a problem, but a hair was across the film camera lens for a few photos. Oh well. 

Here's a few more of the ones I really liked. Remember, the second layer was exposed totally blind to what was on the first layer. The nice alignment of some of them is a happy coincidence.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11. She often insists there should be a photo of me, and is happy to take the camera.

12. Here's the example proving I'd need to take written notes. I did the background for this one between 6 and 7 above. Then when I looked at it a couple of days later, I had no idea what the background was. (Look for the faint stars.) I knew it had to be in the house, between the chalkboard message thingie and my computer in the back room. It took a while to figure out.

Notes for next time? Track the orientation. There was one where I took a photo of a door, thinking it would be nice to have the second layer being Michelle walking. Except I goofed, the door was landscape, and Michelle was portrait. Oops. That happened a few other times as well, making for a bit of weirdness. It looks like this.

13. We all know trees don't grow horizontally.

Notes for next time. Scale doesn't matter. The first layer could be a macro photo of something, or a close up of tree bark, or fabric, or a book cover, or a thunderhead off in the distance. Anything really. I'm working up a list of things to try. You'll note that 7 above is a computer screen. Think about skin tones compared to the background. It seems I disappear into tree bark, like in 10. Mixed materials are fine; in 13 that's a stone wall behind Michelle, mixed with the horizontal trees.

I might think a little more on exposure, perhaps tending to slightly underexpose the first layer, but not so much that it goes muddy or loses contrast, then like normal with film, tend to overexpose the second layer. Depending, of course on what the background and subject are going to be. But rather than read about it, go try!

These were inverted using Negative Lab Pro. Generally I don't do much editing in NLP, but most of these I pushed the sliders a bit more. You'll have to experiment to see what works or not. I tried some Lightroom brushes to work on parts of the image, typically trying to make her face more visible. I got mixed results there, but then again I'm not terribly good at that anyways. 

Am I going to do this again! Absolutely!