Feeling stuck in your studio portrait photography? These double exposures should give you some ideas.
Once in a while, photographers hit a creative rut–and that can especially happen when shooting portraits in the studio. When that happens, trying out a new approach can shake us out of our creative stupor. Experimenting with double exposure is always a good exercise, whether you’re shooting with film or a digital camera. To give you some ideas, you might want to check out the work of Kiev-based graphic designer Victoria Ouarets.
There’s definitely nothing wrong with the portraits Ouarets started with, but it’s easy to see how one would get “tired” of shooting photos like that over and over again. So, what do we do? We follow her example and play around with creative effects, as she had done with these double exposures. There are many ways to do it, not just through film cameras, but also digitally, whether in-camera, through photo editing apps, or even Photoshop Actions.
As we’ve seen in other impressive double exposures, a tried and tested formula is to pair portraits with various textures and shapes. Foliage, flowers, and buildings are among the most popular, so it’s no surprise that Ouarets went with these for her doubles. Paired with the poses, the mood ranges from wistful, to dreamy, and cosmopolitan. So, that’s something to consider when choosing the texture or shapes for your second frame.
Ouarets also obviously did some post-processing in her collection to make the effect more prominent and striking. You may want to give it a try for your own double exposures. Whatever you do, don’t forget to have fun and make it as experimental as you wish!
Visit Victoria Ouarets’ Behance portfolio to see more of her double exposures and other creative projects.
All photos by Victoria Ouarets. Used with Creative Commons permission.
