LAYERING IMAGERY

After the recent workshop, I shared my ideas and thought with a small group and my supervisor, Mick and was encouraged to layer some of my old imagery with the new photos I've taken.

This layering will represent the changes in social situations when restrictions were relaxed/before the pandemic hit, and the lack of social interaction/changes to my social situations now. I've been experimenting with both layering photos in post, and double exposure in the camera.

I've made a Pinterest board full of inspiration for double exposure photography, with images that seem like they were created in post alongside those taken in the camera, whether that be digital, analogue and even polaroid images. https://pin.it/4dPvLqZ

I find it fascinating how two completely different photographs can blend so beautifully together and create an interesting visual piece with lots of different textures, tones and colours. I also like how some faces are blurred, giving a sense of anonymity and blending them into their surroundings. This may be something that I experiment with when capturing double exposures, as it'll highlight the lack of physical human interaction that is taking place at the moment.

Firstly, I used Photoshop to layer different disposable imagery that I've taken with each other. This created some interesting patterns and as I experimented more with how they were layered onto of each other (blending modes) I created some really interesting textures and tones to represent the change in social interactions over the past year.

Then I used my Polaroid Now in the double exposure setting when on a walk with my friend to see if that could create interesting visuals. Although I'm not happy with the results I think it could be a really interesting technique to use and definitely something I experiment with more. Next time I'll try photographing my subject first then something else, rather than the other way around to see if that blurs the subject more. Also the tones I used had a lot of blacks in so this is something I'll try to avoid again as the highlight points allowed lots more aspects to be captured in the second photograph.

In terms of posing, I told my model to not acknowledge the camera so I could capture her raw reaction. My reasoning behind this is that disposable and analogue photography, as I have previously mentioned is always taken within the moment, without a second thought about how the images may turn out, they're just for fun and to record memories.