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harrietsfriend — Test circle. 1970s.imgs479, with story

Published: 2019-03-15 17:50:00 +0000 UTC; Views: 890; Favourites: 48; Downloads: 0
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Description In wedding photography it was popular to double expose an image placing one image within another.  Think of the couple's faces inside the wedding certificate, within the cake or the ceremony shots.  While this could be done after the fact in printing, it didn't look right and the color balance was another problem to contend with.

Before digital photography, making double exposure images was exceedingly complex.  Alignment was a difficult problem to correct when you were working with the single image, taken twice or more.  Masks in front of the lens, on the lens shade, could block out a section of the negative then you would reshoot the image once more.  If your medium format camera had removable backs, you could save the first image to be reshot later in the day once the right background was found, by holding that film magazine aside.  To make matters worse, you were only given one chance.  Like I said complex.

In this roll I was trying to understand the process, and by varying the lens aperture it would also vary the circle's image size.  This circle was made at F2.8 with an 80mm Zeiss Planar on a Hasselblad 500C.  The smaller the aperature, the smaller the circle became.  F4.0 to 5.6 worked best if you wanted a smaller couple's image within the other.  Backgrounds were critical for if you the center circle was bright it would interfere with the couple's exposure. Taken on Kodak Tri-X panchromatic roll film in the 1970s.

Even with a test circle, I still wanted to make the effect interesting.  I chose to shoot an over the shoulder to appear as a sneak capture.

Click to enlarge.

eugene spiegel

I never cared for this procedure and only did it a few times, but still I wanted to understand the process.  It didn't seem right to manipulate the documentary work I was doing.  I felt my job was to record the day, rather than make the event.
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Comments: 7

pearwood [2019-12-14 23:41:55 +0000 UTC]

A fine portrait.

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SonicLover261 [2019-03-16 05:54:01 +0000 UTC]

Top 10 pictures right before disasters.

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MensjeDeZeemeermin [2019-03-16 05:06:10 +0000 UTC]

Tri-X Pan was GOOD film. The Exakta VX loved that stuff.

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GraphFrite [2019-03-15 20:35:26 +0000 UTC]

kinda lost on this one.

If your lens is a 80 mm wouldn't F2.8 be one of the largest if not the largest aperture setting you could get for that lens? F32 being being one of the smallest, if that lens would even stop down that far? 

By closing down the aperture, higher F stop ( F32) number wouldn't you reduce the width of the shot, more depth of field means a tighter shot doesn't it?  

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harrietsfriend In reply to GraphFrite [2019-03-15 21:10:32 +0000 UTC]

start with a lens shade covered with a black mat board and a hole in the center.  as I stopped the iris down it evidently made the circle on the film smaller.  the larger aperture gave the largest circle, while the smaller opening made the circle smaller.  that was the result of the test roll. it didn't show up on the screen while viewing as it was wide open to focus.

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GraphFrite In reply to harrietsfriend [2019-03-16 05:20:21 +0000 UTC]

Ah so you made something physical almost like a camera obscura

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NotWithoutHonor [2019-03-15 17:58:56 +0000 UTC]

Interesting

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