When I Was A Photographer - Capturing Vulnerability

While going through my pictures recently my daughter held up a strip of film and asked; "What's this daddy?"

I had to explain to her that the strip of film was once part of a roll, and that roll was encased within a hard piece of cylindrical plastic which went inside a camera.

Then the film was stretched out and wound around a spool inside the camera, and each time you pressed the button the shutter would open and let light hit the film, after which you would wind the film onto the next frame and repeat.

Once the film was finished, you then wind it all back inside the hard plastic cylinder and give it to a shop whereby they would take out the film in the dark, using a red light and then transpose what was on the film to a photographic sheet.

Her seven year old eyes glazed over long before I got to the end.

One thing did intrigue her though, was how I created a double exposure. She seemed to get the process of taking a picture and then not winding it on so that you could take another pic.

Vulnerable Beauty

I took this picture sometime ago when I was doing a shoot for a clothing label. The shot itself wasn't really fit for purpose as it doesn't show off the clothes in anyway.

However I love it because to me it expresses the two sides of our nature. The outwardly strong and confident one, juxtaposed with the more vulnerable unsure one.

I took many double exposures in the past, and what I loved about them is that there was really no way of knowing how they'd come out until you saw them.

There probably exists a more precise technique that you can use to create a double exposure, however I never took the trouble to learn it, simply because I liked the raw feeling of just guessing where to put the camera next.

Inspiration

As I was taking these shots I was playing around with the idea of strength as an outward force and an inner feeling. I knew I wanted the double exposure to line up in a certain way, but like I said I simply had to guess it.

Sometimes in photography you get what is known as a 'happy accident', and this was definitely one of those times. I took the picture as an afterthought and only tried three different angles, using my last six exposures on the roll.

I did many more double exposures after this, but this was my best one, and I could never quite capture or recreate the emotion of that day.

Of course nowadays you would simply do something like that in photoshop, however I'd like to think that by doing so, you're also taking away a little bit of the magic too.

Technical Details

Camera - Pentax K1000

Film - Kodak 35mm 400 asa

Print - 10x8 Gloss paper - pushed 1/4 stop - yellow/purple highlights

Model - Muji

WHAT DO YOU THINK; IS THERE ANY SPECIAL MAGIC HERE, OR AM I JUST BEING ROMANTIC AND THIS CAN BE DONE JUST AS WELL ON PHOTOSHOP? AS EVER, LET ME KNOW BELOW!

@Cryptogee