Double exposures: A tutorial for photographers

Do you ever feel like you’ve hit a creative brick wall?

I know I have.

This time last year I was feeling utterly down and out. My application to Click Pro had just been rejected and I was heartbroken, berating myself for being useless and pathetic. I cried for days and then I made a decision that I could do this and so I began a project 365. I pushed myself to shoot everyday, giving myself little challenges each month to keep me motivated. Along the way I discovered double exposures, a technique gaining in popularity, as many new cameras have this functionality. When you feel like you can’t push yourself any more, break out the manual or follow along with this simple tutorial and have some fun.

Double exposure is not a new idea by any means and is almost as old as photography itself. It was discovered pretty much by accident, when a photographer accidentally took a second exposure over the first. I remember doing this myself back in the days of film and thinking it was pretty darn cool.

In order to make the most of it in digital photography you need to understand a little about the mechanics of it all. With traditional film, light hits the film and it turns darker the more light it gets, so an overexposed piece of film looks black. Then when the film is processed it inverts to become white or overexposed. It therefore makes sense that if you were to take a picture with a large area of darkness (which shows as lighter areas on film) there is potential for you to add more light, and that is where the magic of double exposures comes about. The dark areas are made lighter by the second exposure. This is a pretty good place to start when first dabbling with double exposures. But as with anything, once you understand the premise you can start bending the rules and creating your own unique exposures.

I use a Canon EOS 5D Mark III and this camera is one of the few that can do double exposures in camera. Others are the Canon EOS 1D X, and 70D; most Nikon DSLRs; Fujifilm’s X-Pro1 and X100s; and the Olympus OM-D E-M5. This tutorial will show you how to achieve this effect with the Canon EOS 5D Mark III.

Step 1

Make your first image. I usually start with a head and shoulders silhouette, but once you gain confidence you can try anything. A huge tip is to shoot against a white background like a softbox or bright sky and intentionally blow the highlights and underexpose the subject.

I use something like this straight out of the camera:

At this stage I knew I would crop to a square, so I wasn’t too worried about the elements on the periphery of the frame. You can also shoot against a bright sky if you’re outdoors to achieve a similar look.

Step 2 (The fun part!)

Go the picture style button on your Canon 5D Mark III and use the dial to turn across to “multiple exposure” and click “set.”

You will then have several sub menu options.

I use the following settings:

Multiple exposure: On: Func/CTRL and click set.

Multi-expos ctrl: Average

No.of exposure: 2

Save source images: All images

Continue Multi-exp: Continuously

Lastly, scroll down to select image for multi-expo. and scroll across to “ok” and click “set.”

Find your silhouette/base image by scrolling through the images on your memory card and click “OK.” Then turn on live view. This allows you to see what you’re doing and it’s easy to overlay your texture image onto your silhouette. It almost feels like I’m cheating because it’s so darn easy! I walk around the garden or park and find stuff with lots of texture. One of my favorite overlays was some cute moss growing on a culvert wall in my local park. You might need to adjust your exposure at this point and take your second image. It takes the camera a few moments to blend your images and you will then see a preview. You can use anything for the second image – sky, leaves, flowers, roads – you are only limited by your imagination. It takes a little bit of experimenting to get the exposures just right. I must have taken at least 100 shots to start getting something I was happy with.

At this point I disable live view, preview the image and decide if I like it or not. You can keep using the same base image over and over until you have something you’re happy with. And you don’t have to shoot continuously. You can take your base images today and play with your overlays another day.

Here a few examples with a true silhouette.

I quite like seeing details in the face and prefer a textured/overlaid look so I soon discovered I preferred a slightly underexposed first image rather than a true silhouette. I spent hours trying different textures, different shadow and light combinations. Sometimes it feels like I got lucky and sometimes it simply doesn’t work. That’s okay. I spend about 15 minutes everyday just playing in my garden. I find it very therapeutic trying all the different combinations. This is one of those cases where I don’t believe there are any rules. Just have fun with it.

About the Author

Latest Posts

Channon Williamson

I grew up in South Africa where I married and had 2 beautiful girls. We immigrated to Australia in 2009 and I re-discovered my love of photography. For the last 6 years we lived in a very remote part of Australia and I learned to use my very stark backdrop as a creative outlet. We recently moved to Perth, where I continue to grow my family, newborn and maternity photography business but also focus on my own artistic growth. I was honored with a national gold award and 3 silver awards for my abstract landscapes at the Australian Professional Photography Awards in 2014 and thereby gained my associate-ship in my first year of entering. I have subsequently won a silver distinction and silver in the family category as well as 2 more silver awards in the landscape category.

See more from Channon at channonwilliamson.com.au.

Recent Posts by Channon Williamson

• Double exposures: A tutorial for photographers