The World of Double Exposures

Certain film camera's had a button or allowed the user to manipulate the way film advanced in a way that allowed a single frame of film to be exposed to light twice creating a ghost image. Today, many digital cameras have settings hidden in the menu that allow the user to create a raw, digital double exposure in camera without having to use external software.

Double exposure settings may be used to create photographs similar to the one shown above. Beyond creating a ghost image effect in a photograph this technique may be used to discuss abstract topics like time, place or even death within a photograph.



It may not appear so but, these branches aren't actually in the same frame however, they could be the lighting looks the same and they never seem to overlap and ghost an effect achieved by careful composition both branches occupy different spaces in the photograph and in reality.



Two different images overlap and create a forest twice as dense, a dead and live tree occupy the same space in the center representing the future and past. Life comes and goes and creates yet more life always in a slightly different position and never quite the same as what came before.



Two very different scenes overlap, one of the forest floor and another of the tree's that live, occupy and die in the same space. Everything falls to the forest floor and provides the very necessities of life that allow the Red Cedar, Western Hemlock and Douglas Fur trees to grow so tall.