In-camera manipulation

Technology is crazy these days. especially in the field of photography where we can upload images and transform them in ways that make them unrecognizable. The images colour, hue, saturation, contrast brightness and so much more, can be manipulated at the click of a button. Not to mention we can include other images that weren't in the original image to begin with. Programs such as Photoshop and Illustrator provide us with infinite possibilities with regards to photo editing. But what did photographers do before these technologies were developed? How could we manipulate exposures without taking the film out of the camera?

Simply click, rewind, and click again.

I apologize, its not as easy as that. But this technique is referred to as in-camera manipulation. It involves re-shooting the same reel of film, putting an exposure on top of another. In order to do this successfully, a precise amount of planning is needed. Firstly, after taking the initial exposure, the camera must be rewound a specific length in order to ensure that the entire previous exposure is covered by the new one. For example, if you desire to take an image of a window, and then one of a tree on top of the original window image, it is a good idea to record which exposure was the window shot, and then rewind the film back to the beginning of that exposure. This can be very tedious, testing and frustrating. But overall, the results can be very rewarding.

Additionally, the photographer needs to be aware of the time that the image is exposed to light. If the first exposure was exposed to 1/2 a second of light, and the second exposure on the same part of film was given another 1/2 a second exposure to light. The original image will have then been subjected to a full second of exposure to light, possibly making the final product very dark. This is something that the photographer must calculate and consider, which might require a few test runs before developing the final product.

Personally, I loved experimenting with this technique. My first reel of in camera manipulation was more of a test run than anything. I didn't reel my film back to the correct measurements, so the exposures were all overlapping each other and not even. It was a mess. But some of the images came out to look very beautiful, when lined up next to each other after I had printed them in the darkroom. Complicated, unintentional but interesting.

My second attempt was much more calculated and more satisfying, as all the first and second exposures were lined up perfectly.

This type of experimentation can also be undertaken outside of the camera, and in the darkroom. All that one needs to do it line up the negatives in the light machine when displaying it down onto the sheet of paper. The light then passes through both the negatives and the two images are printed on top of each other on the paper below. This requires a lot of trial and error in order to get the desired image. Tedious, but very worth it!