composite photograph

n.
A photograph made by combining two or more separate photographs.

Multiple exposure

The straightforward ‘double’ or ‘trick’ exposure has long been a stock in trade of photographers, whether they want to create the illusion of a ghost; of a man playing chess with himself; of ‘seeing through’ a box to show the contents; or simply of merging disparate elements. There are two basic techniques.

The first uses a black background, which does not record at all on the film; the classic material is black velvet, which records at least three stops darker than a mid-tone; or, today, electrostatically coated black flock paper. Whatever is shot against such a background has equal ‘weight’ in the picture. Thus, for example, a man may be photographed pulling on a rope, with one side of the picture blanked out by a ‘matte’ in front of the camera lens; the other end of the rope is held by an assistant. The second exposure shows the same man, pulling on the same rope, in the opposite direction, with the other side of the picture blanked out. The main difficulty lies in matching up the rope in the middle. The same technique is used for a man playing chess with himself, or indeed, for two views of the same ballerina in different poses—or for that matter, of a bride and groom superimposed on an overall scene, or apparently imprisoned in a brandy glass. Much the same effect may be obtained by making two separate exposures, both against black backgrounds, and printing the negatives sequentially or together on one sheet of paper.

The second technique makes two exposures of the whole scene, with and without the ‘ghost’ element. Thus, for example, a camera case might be photographed closed (to show the outside of the case) and open (to show the equipment inside). With a simple ‘ghost’—an insubstantial, semi-transparent person—it will normally suffice to photograph the same scene twice, each time for half the optimum exposure, once without the person and once with. With a more complex image, such as the camera case, a degree of masking with black felt or black flock may be necessary. Again, similar effects may be obtained by making a double exposure at the negative stage or at the printing stage, by printing two negatives either successively or together.

Combination printing

This more complex procedure may be employed at the shooting stage but is much more commonly applied at the printing stage. Elements from two or more completely different scenes are combined to create an image which has never had an objective existence. The simplest example is the ‘printed in’ sky, where a landscape (or any other shot) with a ‘bald’ sky is printed sequentially with a negative of a cloudscape; masking ensures that only the appropriate part of the paper is exposed. This was the technique used by Gustave Le Gray in his classic seascapes of the 1850s. However, the undisputed master of complex combination printing was O. G. Rejlander, whose The Two Ways of Life (1857) was made from more than 30 negatives, printed sequentially on the same piece of paper. Modern art photographers such as Jerry Uelsmann and Andreas Gursky have used combination printing to create disconcertingly surreal and haunting images. And, in addition to photomontage, it has been deployed by propagandists to alter records of key events and/or to eliminate disgraced leaders (Leon Trotsky, Alexander Dubček) from group photographs.

The trickery of composite image making was described in great detail in two classic manuals, Marcel Natkin's Fascinating Fakes in Photography (1939) and Edwin Smith's All the Photo-Tricks (1940). Today, digital printing techniques are much easier.

— Roger W. HicksRoger W. Hicks