During the same shoot this weekend with Maeve I persuaded her to pose for a shoot looking at portraiture and specifically setting up some shots for exploring double and multiple exposure further.
Here are the results after editing in photoshop cs6.
I laid the two photographs over each other the hands on the top and lined up the eyes. I used a gradient mask to make the photos b/w and adjusted the levels to bring out the darks and whites. I made the hand layer 54% opacity and then used a layer mask to delete the edges of the top layer and by turning down the opacity on the paint brush was able to bring the eyes out a little.
The shots above and below this comment are my favourite outcomes of the shoot. I really like the see, hear, speak no evil idea that represents aspects of her career as a journalist and her passion for human rights. 
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wow these photos are amazing and are a great influence to my AS photography
Thank you so much! It’s lovely to get feedback that what I’ve done has helped someone. Good luck with your photography AS level hope your project goes well 😀
These are incredible! they have also influenced my A2 photography. I was wondering if you may be able to give me a little background information about yourself, so that i can use you as an artistic influence in my sketch book. For example where you are from and when you started producing pieces in this field?
Hi, Thank you! It is really lovely to hear that something I have done has influenced and helped another artist. I have updated my ‘about this blog’ page to answer some of your questions and hope that it is helpful! To answer your last question – over the last year inspired by many different photographers – Dan Mountford and Alex Hutchinson are two excellent photographers – who you might also want to look at as their work is simply stunning.
Thank you again and I hope your A2 goes well.
Hi, my name is Himisha. I am an A-level student in the UK studying photography and I am currently working on a photography project on portraits. Whilst doing research, I came across you with your work and was inspired by your black and white double exposure photography. I will need to do research for this task and so if its possible would you be able to answer the following questions:
1. How were you inspired by this type of photography?
2. When did you start photography and what makes you enjoy photography?
3. What camera process did you use in order to get the right outcome in your photos?
4. How do you feel about these photographs and what do you want your audiences to feel as well?
Hopefully you will able to answer all these questions. Thank you !
Hi Himisha,
Thank you! Glad you like my work.
1. I love double exposure, I think you can play around with what is real and what is not whilst saying a lot about the person who has modeled for you. It features a lot in my illustration and painting as well as in my photography – most of which hasn’t made it on here yet….
2. I took Alevel photography but stopped until I met my husband who taught me lots of new techniques and we go out taking photographs together when we get time. We both love it and its great to be able to spend time together being creative.
3. I used a Canon 1100D and took a series of portrait photographs using low key lighting but against a white background as I wanted shadows but to be able to see the edge of her head all around. I took separate photographs of hands in various positions against a white background but with low key lighting again to enhance the shadows and contours. Once I had them all I used Photoshop CS6 to layer them, used a layer mask to carefully edit where the face and hands blended or did not blend and changed the levels of light and dark in the individual layers to bring out the features that I wanted to emphasize. (The eyes for example).
4. I like them – they came out well but I’m never truly satisfied and would always change and improve next time around if I could. You have to draw a line somewhere otherwise you’d never present anything at all! I hope that anyone looking at the images enjoys the aesthetics of them firstly. Then it would be great if they started reading their own stories into them. I’ve mentioned that my friend who modeled is a journalist with a passion for human rights and think that in some way these images represent the difficulties that career can entail (uncovering the truth is hard) which is my story for the image but the great thing about art is that people can and will read it in a way personal to them.
Another fun multiple exposure technique to try is this one –
Hope that is helpful!
Ella
thank you so much Ella, this would help me a lot for A-levels ! May I just ask you roughly what ISO, F-stop and aperture did you take these images at ??
Not a problem, I changed the ISO depending on how light/dark I wanted it as well as changing the exposure time. In the non-studio setting this was a slightly easier way to get crisp images (no higher than ISO 800!) with a variety of tones. I wanted the very shallow depth of field which meant I didn’t want to change the f/stop and restricted me to changing the ISO and exposure time given the set up I had available! Not ideal but I guess shows what you can do without a studio.
Settings tended to be one of the below:
f/4.5 1/13 Sec and ISO 800
f/4.5 1/25 sec and ISO 400
f/4.5 1/13 sec and ISO 200
I also set the White balance to daylight to get a warm glow to the photos. You do loose this by changing it to B/W but it has been useful when using the same photos for other projects.
Hope thats helpful.
Thank you once again for all this information, it would help me a lot.
Hi Ella, I was really happy with my double exposure portraits since I was inspired by your work. Now I am deciding to do multiple exposures and was wondering if you can answer the following questions please:
1. why were you insipired by Tim walker’s photography?
2. How did you produce these images, for example photoshop process?
3. How did you feel about these photographs you produced and what would the audience feel about these?
4. What does thes multiple exposures portray?
Thank you 🙂
Hi,
I hope this reply is not too late – its been a bit busy round here!
Incase you are still interested (- and thank you btw!)
1. why were you insipired by Tim walker’s photography?
His work shows a freedom of imagination and a sense of purpose – his photographs show a real hardcore dedication to getting ‘the shot’ which is inspiring.
2. How did you produce these images, for example photoshop process?
These photographs where done with two photographs and I blended them on photoshop using layer masks. The other photographs inspired by Tim Walker ( https://ellapaton.wordpress.com/2014/03/07/multiple-exposure-long-exposure-flashgun-experimentation/ )were done with a remote shutter control, remote flash gun (using two tripods, one for the camera and one for the flash gun) and a very long exposure. I flashed the shot as many times as I felt necessary – experimentation was key here – and then tidied up in photoshop using levels mostly and a little dodging and burning.
3. How did you feel about these photographs you produced and what would the audience feel about these?
I’m really happy – I tend to take a LOT of shots and edit and share only the ones I really like. As always there are things I’d do differently now that I’ve tried and got the hang of the technique. I’ll experiment more in future.
4. What does the multiple exposures portray? I’m not sure. Currently I’m jut enjoying the experimentation process and achieving results with techniques and processes that I have not used before.
Good luck with your studies – hope this is helpful.
Thanks,
Ella