10 amazing photography techniques
1. Get creative with exposures Create surrealist portraits using an in-camera multiple exposure
Double exposures are a fun way of producing an unusual, creative effect in-camera without the need for Photoshop
1: Check your settings Depending on your camera, you may have a choice of as many as nine or ten exposures, but you really only need two for this effect. Experiment with Auto Gain On and Off.
2: Take your first shot
3: Find a second subject
Take a photo of your model. It works best to do this against a background that will be slightly overexposed, such as the sky.
Take a photo of a nearby building or tree. This second shot will then sit over the top of the first image that you captured.
10 Photography Tips, Tricks & Fixes
One of the things that can frustrate people about modern photography is the fact that, many of its more creative facets take place in post-production, long after the original image was captured. Unless they had access to a fully functional darkroom, film-based photographers had to find ways to create intriguing effects in-camera. Right from the early days of photography, creatives have been experimenting with the notion of exposing a single frame twice in order to splice one scene or composition with another. Indeed, before cameras automatically wound on the roll of film, photographers could easily find themselves accidentally neglecting to do so manually, resulting in the potential for very interesting effects to occur. This sort of effect can be reproduced using many current DSLRs and CSCs, which offer a dedicated Multiple Exposure mode. While you generally only need the ability to blend two frames, some photographers will find that their cameras feature the ability to shoot as many as nine or ten frames. This feature can even be used to create long exposure effects without the need for a neutral density filter, as several short exposures combined as one frame will result in an effect that’s remarkably similar to the results produced by a filter. Once you’ve determined that your camera has the Multiple Exposure mode, the process is relatively straightforward and there isn’t a long list of variables to worry about. You first have to determine how many frames you want to set for your sequence, as once you’ve started shooting, you can’t readjust this. The only other option you are likely to encounter is Auto Gain On/Off. Auto Gain will attempt to build the correct exposure for you – potentially useful in some situations, but not so great in others. It depends on the nature of the subject you are shooting and the effect that you are hoping to produce, so try experimenting with Auto Gain to discover what works best for you. If you don’t have this setting on your camera, on this issue’s cover disc you can discover how to reproduce similar effects in Photoshop.