In this season’s photo book selection, we look at early color photographs by urban street photographer, Mitch Epstein; Elaine Mayes’s portraits of hippies and oddballs at the height of Haight-Ashbury’s counterculture scene; a reprint of William Eggleston‘s famous Chromes; whimsical portraits of Swedish farmers and villagers from the early 20th century; and a special edition of Kikuji Kawada‘s Chizu (The Map), one of the most sought-after photo books of all time.

Mitch Epstein, Silver + Chrome – 112 pages, hardcover (Steidl)

Related: Walker Evans’ American Photographs, and five other photobooks worth checking out

Mitch Epstein was one of the first photographers to champion the use of color film in the 1970s, at a time when “art photography” was B&W. A former student of Garry Winogrand, he once asked his mentor, “Why not color?” to which Winogrand apparently had no good response. With his blessing, Epstein began working with Kodachrome.

His work was first exhibited in 1977, in New York, and he was immediately seen as a serious photographer. This new book shows the transitional period when he was shooting both B&W and color, with photos from 1973-1976, many of which have never been seen before. They highlight the energy and effervescence of cities like New York, Los Angeles, and New Orleans, the sexual liberation occurring at the time, and reactions to the Vietnam war.

Elaine Mayes, The Haight-Ashbury Portraits 1967-1968 – 96 pages, hardcover (Damiani)

The Summer of Love in San Fransisco lasted just one season. It started in 1967, and quickly went downhill as people from around the United States flocked to the city to take part, motivated by press accounts of the sex, drugs, and rock and roll that were freely available.

Freelance photographer Elaine Mays, who was living in the Haight-Ashbury district of the city—which was ground zero for the counterculture—had photographed the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, and began photographing the hippies and other counter-culture oddballs around her the following year. Instead of just taking street photographs, she took portraits of the people she encountered, asking them to pose naturally.

“Natural” was different for each person, and this collection of portraits shows a wide range of people and how they presented themselves to the camera during this pivotal time for American youth culture. The wide range of subjects in this book is a window on the type of people who gravitated to San Francisco in this time, some of whom may still be there.

William Eggleston, Chromes – 432 pages, hardcover (Steidl)

This three-volume set from William Eggleston’s early career was shot between 1969 and 1974. First released in 2011, it went out of print fairly quickly. The contents of the set were curated from a collection of more than 5,000 slides, including photographs made on both Kodachrome and Ektachrome, many of which had never been published before.

Eggleston’s approach to photography was “democratic,” which, to him, meant that anything could be a subject. As such, some may find his photos simplistic and boring, but when looking at a collection of his work, you can see how he views the world, and how his framing of subjects makes sense.

He spoke of these photos as “poetic snapshots.” And the combination of the unexpected compositions with the saturated colors of the photos—most of these photos were printed using the dye transfer process—makes them jump off the page. Eggleston’s work is an acquired taste, but anyone who appreciates these photos should get this book now, because it’s unlikely to be reprinted.

John Alinder, Portraits 1910-1932 – 256 pages, (Dewi Lewis)

Every now and then, an unknown photographer is discovered whose work went overlooked in their lifetime. A recent example is Vivian Maier. Her mesmerizing street photographs spanning the 20th century weren’t uncovered until shortly after her death in 2009. However, she is now recognized as an important photographer.

John Alinder was the son of a farmer in Sweden and a self-taught photographer. In the 1980s, a curator discovered more than 8,000 glass plates of photographs he took between 1901 and 1932 of people in his village. The subjects are mostly dressed in their Sunday best, unsure of how to pose for a camera, and there is a sense of whimsey in many of the photos, as people stand on chairs or logs, some making funny poses, and others looking very serious. Somewhat like August Sander‘s portraits of everyday people, these photos lack pretension and show a glimpse of a world that is on the cusp of the past and modernity.

Kikuji Kawada, Chizu (Maquette Edition) – 272 pages, (Mack)

One of the most sought-after Japanese photo books has long been Chizu, which means “The Map.” Photographer Kikuji Kawada first visited Hiroshima in 1958, photographing the dome that remains as a memorial from the atomic bomb explosion in 1945. Over the next few years, he continued to photograph the site and was notably moved by the stains on the walls and ceiling of the dome.

On August 6, 1965, Chizu was published, the book featuring photos of these stains, along with photos of Japanese war memorabilia. The current edition is a reproduction of the original maquette (the pre-production dummy), in two hardcover volumes, together with a paperback volume, which discusses the history of the book, and includes an interview with the photographer.

In The Photobook: A History, Volume 1, Martin Parr and Gerry Badger describe Chizu as, “the ultimate photo-book-as-an-object,” adding that, “no photo book been more successful in combining graphic design with complex photographic narrative.”

The style of photos and the unconventional crops give the book an abstract quality. This is especially true of the original edition, which included fold-out pages. The maquette edition is much simpler, without the gatefolds, but it still shows how powerful this book is.

The post Portraits from the Summer of Love, and four other photo book picks appeared first on Popular Photography.

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For this week’s reader challenge, we asked you to submit photos of the inanimate. And as always, you delivered. While some folks settled on more unusual subjects to photograph, the vast majority of you stuck with classic still life hallmarks, including floral arrangments, skulls, glassware, and more. The winning images range from dramatic to lighthearted to just plain spooky.

Want to be featured in a future gallery? Weekly themes are posted Sundays. To enter, you can upload your submissions to our Flickr pool, tag them on Instagram and Twitter, or join/upload them to our Photos of the Day Facebook group.

Lead image by David Terao. See more of David’s work here.

Channeling the Dutch masters

Skulls are a staple of the still life genre and Instagram user Skzikit brilliantly channels the work of Dutch Golden Age painters like Pieter Claesz with this shot. Plus, with Halloween nearly upon us, the spooky factor feels especially fitting.

Eggs? Eggs.

Sometimes the simplest subjects make for the most enjoyable images. And Susan Liepa‘s image of eggs is a good example. Something about it makes me smile, maybe it’s the delicate way they’re stacked, the gentle tones, or the soft focus. Or maybe I’m just hungry for a hardboiled… nope, definitely the former.

Swirls of shadows & highlights

This is a particularly gorgeous image of a subject most simple—the humble glass—captured masterfully by José Luis Funes. The swirling highlights and shadows play nicely off the plain, slightly textured grey backdrop. And the framing gives ample breathing room around the subject.

But perhaps most importantly, it appears no beverages were spilled during the making of this shot.

Standing straight

This still life, captured by Robert Serbinenko also put a smile on my face. Though the subject is once again quite ordinary, the results are both humorous and eye-catching. I feel like I’m looking at some tiny soldiers standing straight in a line against a setting sun, or maybe an unreleased Pink Floyd album cover. Or maybe both.

Horizontal arrangement with lilies & flax

This classic still life scene was captured by Judith Hamblyn using her Samsung S10 smartphone. The arrangement looks professionally styled, i.e. gorgeous. And I love the way the floral colors pop against the dark green backdrop.

’69 GTO

Finally, we have this awesome barn scene, featuring a 1969 Pontiac GTO, snapped in Southern Alberta, Canada by Gordon Hunter. While old cars, busted bikes, and rotting dolls may not be the first thing you think of when you think “still life,” the scene surely works! I can only imagine what other treasures are hiding in there.

The post Freeze! The week’s best reader-submitted still life photos appeared first on Popular Photography.

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Photography has a lot of rules that are really just principles. Most of them are useful guidelines worth understanding, not edicts to be followed to the letter. In this photography fundamentals series, we’re going to look at when you should follow the rules—and when you should consider breaking them. First, though, we need to cover some of the most important fundamentals of photography composition.

Related: How to take good pictures in bright sunlight

The rule of thirds

The rule of thirds is one of the most common—and most misunderstood—fundamentals of photography composition. The idea is that you divide your frame into thirds both vertically and horizontally. The important elements of your image should then be placed on one of these third lines or better yet, at one or more of the four intersections of both vertical and horizontal third lines, like the truck in the image above. 

While not itself the secret to wonderful images, the rule of thirds is a great way to avoid some big compositional mistakes. If you follow it, you normally place the most important elements of your image nicely in the frame without them being too centered. 

If you’ve got a reason to ignore the rule of thirds, go right ahead. Otherwise, it’s a handy starting compositional principle to work from. 

The golden ratio

The golden ratio or golden spiral is similar to the rule of thirds, compositionally speaking, but with more mysticism and mathematics thrown in.

While the rule of thirds splits the frame into three equal sections, the golden ratio, also known as the Fibonacci Spiral, places a vertical frame line closer to the center of the frame, splitting it into one slightly smaller and one slightly larger quadrant. Each time the frame is split horizontally, the smaller section is then split vertically using the same ratio. This process is repeated, breaking the frame into smaller and smaller chunks, as shown above.

However, even though the ratio appears often in both great works of art and nature, we’ve yet to see an image where it creates a significantly stronger composition than the rule of thirds (they’re just so darn similar). So, while it can be fun to play around with, it’s certainly not a compositional rule that you should obsess over.

Symmetry

Symmetry can make for incredibly eye-catching images. It’s often easy to create symmetrical compositions with reflections, like from surface water, or using man-made structures, as shown below.

Symmetry is also one of the most fun compositional principles to break. Images with a mix of symmetrical and asymmetrical elements can be incredibly compelling. 

Complementary colors

Think back to your earliest art class, remember the color wheel? Well, the same principles that apply to painting and drawing also apply to photography. Colors opposite each other on the wheel, when placed side-by-side or near one another, often appear brighter. So, photos with reds and greens, yellows and blues, or purples and oranges, for instance, will look extra vibrant and punchy. Use this knowledge to your advantage.

Leading lines

Our eyes are drawn to strong lines in images. This makes things like guide rails of a bridge or even just a road through a landscape, a great way to guide (or lead) your viewers’ gaze to the most important parts of your photo. 

Leading lines isn’t so much a compositional rule you should break, as something you should be aware of if you don’t want to use it. If your image has strong lines, it will draw viewers’ attention. If you don’t want them looking where the lines lead, you will have to reframe your shot. 

Fill the frame

Filling the frame is a compositional approach that says your subject or subjects’ should take up as much of the image as possible. With a portrait, this generally means cropping in so that the subject’s face or body completely fills the frame. This removes the background and as a result, the context of the scene from the subject, often leading to some pretty dramatic results. The same approach to can be applied to a crowd, as shown above.

While a useful stylistic approach for many kinds of photography, there are plenty of times when you shouldn’t fill the frame with your subject. For example, if you are trying to show size by situating your subject in its environment, or trying to create a sense of isolation, filling the frame will undermine your intent.

Don’t cut things off

A common principle recommended in many photography books is to avoid cutting limbs, torsos, and other crucial parts of the image with the edge of your frame. It’s easy to understand why; most people look silly with half their hand chopped off. However, it can be tricky to pull off in practice, especially when you’re shooting street or travel scenes. 

At a fixed point, the photograph ends but the world continues. While it is worth thinking about what is getting cut out of the image by the frame, you will always have to make a decision that cuts something out. (Just try to keep as many limbs in the image as possible.)

Keep the action going into the frame

Especially for sports and other kinds of action photography, a good principle is to keep the action going into the frame. This means that if your subject is running to the right, then they should be positioned to the left of the image so they are running into the open space. 

This is another rule that works in a lot of situations, but can readily be broken when you have cause to do so. For example, if you are shooting a 100m sprint and want to show the gap between first and second-place runners. 

Useful rules, but not laws

Photography is a wonderful mix of science and art. While the process of capturing an image relies on the laws of physics and mathematics, composing a photograph is a pure art. Although the fundamentals of photography composition include some fantastic rules, they are best viewed as starting points that will stop you from making mistakes, rather than laws that can’t be broken. 

In the next article in the series, we’ll look at how to do just that.

The post Photography’s golden rules and when to break them appeared first on Popular Photography.

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What could be more fundamental to photography today than our smartphone cameras? They’re ever-present, ready in moments, and the technology behind them makes it easy to capture great photos in most situations. And yet, I regularly encounter people who are unaware of many of the core functions of the built-in camera app.

Smartphone camera fundamentals extend beyond just “push the big button.” Some tools help you set up the shot, and some give you more control over the exposure. A few are just plain convenient or cool. However, these features aren’t always easy to find. That’s where we come in.

iOS 16 vs. Android 13

But first, for these examples, I’m using the two phones I have at hand: an iPhone 13 Pro running iOS 16 and a Google Pixel 6 Pro running Android 13. I’m also focusing just on the built-in camera apps; for even more manual control, you can find third-party apps in the app stores. Many of the camera features overlap between iOS and Android operating systems, and it’s possible that some may not be available on older models, or are accessible in a different way. If you see something here that doesn’t match with what you see, break out the manual—I mean, search Google—and see if it’s available for yours.

How to quick-launch the camera

Most people perform the usual dance of unlocking the phone, finding the camera app, and tapping to launch it. By that time, the moment you were trying to capture might be gone. There are faster ways.

Related: Composition in the age of AI – Who’s really framing the shot?

On the iPhone’s lock screen, swipe right-to-left to jump straight to the camera app without unlocking the phone at all. You can also press the camera icon on the lock screen. On the Pixel, double-press the power button from any screen.

When the phone is unlocked, a few more options are available. On both phones, press and hold the camera app icon to bring up a menu of shooting modes, such as opening the app with the front-facing selfie camera active.

I also like the ability to double-tap the back of the phone to launch the camera. On the iPhone, go to Settings > Accessibility > Touch > Back Tap and choose Camera for the Double Tap (or Triple Tap) option. In Android, go to Settings > System > Gestures > Quick Tap > Open app and choose Camera.

Related: Outsmart your iPhone camera’s overzealous AI

How to use the volume buttons to trigger the shutter

If you miss the tactile feedback of pressing a physical shutter button, or if hitting the software button introduces too much shake, press a volume button instead.

On both phones, pressing either volume button triggers the shutter. Holding a button starts recording video, just as if you hold your finger on the virtual shutter button.

On the iPhone, you can also set the volume up button to fire off multiple shots in burst mode: go to Settings > Camera > Use Volume Up for Burst.

How to adjust the exposure & focus quickly

The camera apps do a good job of determining the proper exposure for any given scene—if you forget that “proper” is a loaded term. You do have more control, though, even if the interfaces don’t make it obvious.

On the iPhone

On the iPhone, tap anywhere in the preview to set the focus and meter the exposure level based on that point. Even better (and this is a feature I find that many people don’t know about), touch and hold a spot to lock the focus and exposure (an “AE/AF LOCK” badge appears). You can then move the phone to adjust the composition and not risk the app automatically resetting them.

Once the focus and exposure are set or locked, lift your finger from the screen and then drag the sun icon that appears to the right of the target box to manually increase or decrease the exposure. A single tap anywhere else resets the focus and exposure back to automatic.

On the Pixel

On the Pixel, tap a point to set the focus and exposure. That spot becomes a target, which stays locked even as you move the phone to recompose the scene. Tapping also displays sliders you can use to adjust white balance, exposure, and contrast. Tap the point again to remove the lock, or tap elsewhere to focus on another area.

How to zoom with confidence

We think of “the camera” on our phones, but really, on most modern phones, there are multiple cameras, each with its own image sensor behind the array of lenses. So when you’re tapping the “1x” or “3x” button to zoom in or out, you’re switching between cameras.

Whenever possible, stick to those preset zoom levels. The 1x level uses the main camera (what Apple calls the “wide” camera), the 3x level uses the telephoto camera, and so on. Those are optical values, which means you’ll get a cleaner image as the sensor records the light directly.

But wait, what about using the two-finger pinch gesture to zoom in or out? Or, you can drag left or right on the zoom selection buttons to reveal a circular control (iPhone) or slider (Android) to let you compose your scene without needing to move, or even zoom way into 15x or 20x.

It’s so convenient, but try to avoid it if possible. All those in-between values are calculated digitally: the software is interpolating what the scene would look like at that zoom level by artificially enlarging pixels. Digital zoom technology has improved dramatically over the years, but optical zoom is still the best option.

How to switch camera modes quickly

Speaking of switching, the camera apps feature many different shooting modes, such as Photo, Video, and Portrait. Instead of tapping or trying to drag the row of mode names, on both iOS and Android, simply swipe left or right in the middle of the screen to switch modes.

How to use the grid & level for stronger compositions

Whether you subscribe to the “rule of thirds” or just want some help keeping your horizons level, the built-in grid features are handy.

In iOS, go to Settings > Camera > Grid and turn the option on. In Android, you can choose from three types of grids by going to the settings in the camera app, tapping More Settings, and choosing a Grid Type (such as 3 x 3).

The grid on the iPhone, and a related setting called Framing Hints on the Pixel, also enable a horizontal level. When you’re holding the phone parallel to the ground or a table, a + icon appears in the middle of the screen on both models. As you move, the phone’s accelerometer indicates when you’re not evenly horizontal by displaying a second + icon. Maneuver the phone so that both icons line up to ensure the camera is horizontally level.

How to control the flash & ‘Night’ modes

Both camera systems are great about providing more light in dark situations, whether that’s turning on the built-in flash or activating Night mode (iOS) or Night Sight (Android). The interfaces for controlling those are pretty minimal, though.

On the iPhone, tap the flash icon (the lightning bolt) to toggle between Off and Auto. For more options tap the carat (^) icon, which replaces the camera modes beneath the preview with buttons for more features. Tap the Flash button to choose between Auto, On, and Off.

On the Pixel, tap the Settings button in the camera app and, under More Light, tap the Flash icon (another lightning bolt).

The Pixel includes its Night Sight mode in the More Light category. When it’s enabled, Night Sight automatically activates in dark situations—you’ll see a crescent moon icon on the shutter button. You can temporarily deactivate this by tapping the Night Sight Auto button that appears to the right of the camera modes.

The iPhone’s Night mode is controlled by a separate button, which looks like a crescent moon with vertical stripes indicating a dark side of the moon. Tap it to turn Night mode on or off. Or, tap the carat (^) icon and then tap the Night mode button to reveal a sliding control that lets you choose an exposure time beyond just Auto (up to 30 seconds in a dark environment when the phone is stabilized, such as on a tripod).

Put the fun in smartphone fundamentals

As with every camera—smartphone or traditional—there are plenty of features to help you get the best shot. Be sure to explore the app settings and the other buttons (such as setting self-timers or changing the default aspect ratio) so that when the time comes, you know exactly which smartphone camera feature to turn to.

The post How to unlock your smartphone camera’s best hidden features appeared first on Popular Photography.

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Six years ago, photographer Jamie Beck was seemingly living the life. She was running a thriving commercial photography studio in New York City and had all the trappings of success—prestigious clients from Vogue to Nike, a beautiful apartment, designer clothes, a vintage car. However, surrounded by what seemed like a dream was anything but—Beck found that she was dealing with a wild sense of inexplicable unhappiness.

During this time, Beck was spending half the year traveling for work, when a pair of jobs took her to the region she now calls home. A visit to the French village of Lacoste and then the perfume capital of Grasse left her enchanted. After experiencing a turbulent and frightening plane ride, Beck had an epiphany. She wanted to live in France before she died. Paris wouldn’t do; it was too much like New York. And so she went to Provence. 

“It was just fascinating to me,” Beck tells PopPhoto about what compelled her to uproot her life. “The light was so beautiful. There are so many different textures, colors, senses, and essences that I’d never experienced before, that haunted me.”

An American in Provence

What was meant to be a year’s sabbatical turned into six years and counting in a small Provençal town. And now, Beck has a book to show for it. An American in Provence chronicles the landscape through the seasons via recipes, anecdotes, and, of course, photography tutorials, and Beck’s signature, painterly images that harken back to the Dutch masters. It is, in addition, a record of her own personal transformation.  

“What I thought would be very external because it’s so beautiful and rich here, was also internal too,” she shares. “It changed me. Throughout this whole process of moving to France, I studied that change in the landscape outside my window, and within myself, through my camera.”

The artworks

An American in Provence is exquisite in its deft marriage between the visual artwork and the writing. Paging through it, I wasn’t sure where to turn first—the beautiful photographs or the rich stories (and recipes) behind them. The images are a visual feast, garnering Beck a loyal following online. Though she writes that her life in New York didn’t permit her to create the type of art she wanted, she also didn’t land in Provence with a vision of still-life compositions and self-portraits. They are the result of finally finding room and time for play and experimentation, plus a pivotal interaction with her local cheesemonger. 

“I was so present because there’s also not a lot of distractions here. There’s not so much noise. There’s no entertainment, things to go do. I just had my camera to entertain myself with and to play with photography again,” she recalls. “It opened that whole level up when the guy I buy cheese from asked me to make a still life of his cheese. It lit a fire. I was like, ‘Wow, what else is around us that’s just part of our everyday life that’s insanely beautiful?’ It’s about the life that’s around us and the beauty of that life. That was definitely not something that I had anticipated, other than just wanting to explore and play. Really to just play with photography again and see where that could lead.”

The self-portrait

Over the years, the self-portrait has become another staple in the photographer’s repertoire. Allusions to Botticelli and other old masters abound in the deep shadows, rich colors, and perfectly placed hands. Beck notes that Van Gogh practiced self-portraiture in order to better understand light and color—she’s doing the same. 

“It was just a study and a play,” she shares of the beginning. “To figure out a deeper direction in my portraiture photography. In the beginning, I was just playing, even though I had an idea. But now when I go out, I’m really trying to tell a specific story about my life.

Like the day at the market with the cheesemonger was a catalyst for her still life practice, Beck’s pregnancy with her daughter, who is now three years old, was a turning point in her study of the self-portrait. 

“I became very in tune and attached to the land, into the seasons and becoming more a part of that. I wanted to express myself in that space,” the artist elaborates. “Documenting my pregnancy in a changing body was just a really fun aspect of that just because it’s just such an extraordinary experience that we go through. Now, I’m trying to do things that are even more elaborate and more painterly and more detached from what we typically see.”

The author’s favorites

For one who creates such elaborate scenes, Beck’s photography kit is surprisingly (and refreshingly) simple. She favors her Sony α7R IV with a 90mm Sony lens for her still life work; a 24-70mm for snapshots; and a 50mm and 35mm when traveling. 

An American in Provence is a dance between the poetry of words and images. One moment, you’re dreaming of the tantalizing champagne-soaked violet sorbet, the next, you’re scrambling to assemble materials for a cyanotype tutorial—all while trying to peel your eyes away from the Provençal landscape, across which is periodically scrawled a line or two from her personal journals. It’s no wonder Beck has been hailed as the next Peter Mayle. 

When quizzed about her favorite entries, Beck shares three, although as far as recipes are concerned, she prefaces that it depends on the mood. A good starter for the beginner cook, though, would be the whole roast chicken.

“We eat roast chicken all year round and the vegetables [are] the only thing that changes. It’s so delicious and it’s so French,” Beck reveals. “I just make the riser that you put the chicken on out of half lemon and a half garlic head. It’s super easy. You don’t even have to have that much equipment. It’s just butter, the secret’s butter honestly, and salt. As everything.”

She also mentions a violet sorbet made with champagne and a cyanotype tutorial, the latter of which she heavily advocated to stay in the book, as the analog process is popular in France. 

“We have so much sun and they’re so easy to make,” Beck elaborates. “And we have so much landscape to forage and make things with, and the color blue is the [same] blue of the [sky] here. It just feels so Provence to me.”

Encouraging others to step into their creativity

As for what she hopes people will take away from the book? An American in Provence might be a love letter to photography, but it’s also an ode to beauty and the life you can create, if you dare. There’s something for everyone, whether or not you consider yourself a photographer or artistically inclined. According to Beck, creativity is present even in our most mundane activities. 

“I think that we as humans enjoy creating and we are creators,” she says. “You can create a photograph obviously. You can create a painting. [But even if you’re not creative in the traditional sense] you also create dinner and you create your outfits and you create your home. There’s creativity in every aspect of what we do. It’s just part of our nature. I feel like on days in which we do create are better days for us as humans.”

An American in Provence is available for preorder now with a release date of November 8.

The post Jamie Beck’s photos from the French countryside look like Renaissance paintings appeared first on Popular Photography.

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You pick out a roll of film and load it into your camera. You advance by a few frames. You line up your shot and…*CLICK.* The shutter opens for just an instant, light hits the film, and the moment is captured. All that’s left is to advance to the next frame…Or not?

Shooting double exposures is a classic technique that involves exposing the same section of film twice to overlay two scenes within a single frame. This can be repeated any number of times to create multiple exposures of any amount, but in the interest of keeping this article a bit simpler, I’ll be sticking to just double exposures.

Related: Best 35mm film

Why try double exposure photography

Everyone goes through periods of feeling uninspired, and shooting a roll of double exposures is a great way to get the creative juices flowing again. Personally, I shoot a lot of film and I often revisit familiar locations. There’s certainly no lack of pictures to be taken, but it can be hard to get excited about shooting somewhere you’ve been to countless times before. For me, shooting double exposures is a way to breathe new life into a place; it gets me excited to go out and shoot again.

Another great thing about shooting double exposures is that they’re super simple to try out, but very challenging to master. Double exposures can be done with any film camera and often lead to cool results even without any real planning.

Related: Everything you need to know to get started with Super 8 film

If you do decide to plan though, there are many factors that go into creating that “perfect” image. The type of film, how scenes are metered, and the framing of shots are all essential when trying to create more intentional double exposures. Experimenting is key, and even though there can be a lot of disappointments, it’s worth it when one comes out exactly as you’d hoped.

The science behind double exposures

The way this works is pretty straightforward but requires a basic understanding of how film functions. Film consists of a strip of celluloid coated with chemicals that react to light when exposed (i.e., they are photosensitive). This reaction permanently alters the film such that the specific pattern of light (the photo) can be seen once the film is developed. 

With that in mind, there’s no reason why the same strip of film can’t be exposed to light a second time to re-trigger this reaction, thereby layering two photos into a single frame. Now, this is an extremely simplified explanation, but hopefully it helps give a bit of background to what’s going on when you take double exposures.

A final thing to remember is that the shadows of the first photo will show in the second photo more prominently, and vice versa. This is because the shadows of a photo haven’t been exposed to as much light as the highlights, so they still have the ability to retain an image. For example, consider the following photo:

In this double exposure, the shadows of the first image (the road) show the statue most clearly. Simultaneously, the shadows of the second image (the statue and its base) show the cars and the power lines best.

To plan or not to plan?

Related: Film photography is driving increased silver demand

There are three approaches I like to take when creating double exposures. These are just meant to give you some ideas of where to start and to hopefully get your creativity flowing. The approaches are: Shooting completely random/unrelated images for each photo, shooting with a very loose overall goal (e.g. contrasting city and nature), and precisely planning out frames to achieve a specific vision.

Before showing you some examples, I’d like to mention that it can be easy to overexpose the film unless you have a good idea of what you’re doing. For that reason, I’d recommend starting out by underexposing each individual shot by one stop, then experimenting a bit once you see how that turns out. One easy way to do this is by setting your camera’s ISO to double the film’s ISO. That way you can just meter as you normally would without needing to remember to underexpose when shooting.

With that out of the way, here are a few examples:

Leave it to chance

This double exposure was taken with no plan in mind. I enjoy the unexpected composition here, with the right of the frame being extremely crowded and the left being fairly empty. It’s not something I would have thought to do intentionally.

Keeping in theme

For this double exposure, I shot through the entire roll at separate times with the goal of photographing city scenes on the first pass and nature scenes on the second pass.

Planning the shot

For this frame, I had a specific plan in mind. I wanted to create some ‘artificial street art’ by first taking a photo of a brick wall, then a photo of a sunflower. For metering here, I underexposed both scenes by about a stop, but ensured the sunflower was against a mostly dark background.

How to photograph a double exposure on film

Method 1: Shoot the same roll twice 

If you saw my guide on redscaling film, you’ll be happy to learn that creating double exposures is even easier. Depending on your camera, there are a few ways to achieve this effect.

The first way to take double exposures is to shoot through a roll fully, rewind it, then shoot through the whole thing again. The upside to this approach is that you can do it with any camera, but there are a number of downsides that make it a bit less desirable than the other methods. However, there are workarounds.

With this method, it can be a bit challenging to line up the frames perfectly on top of one another. Doing so involves taking a lot of notes and is very prone to error. You’re also locked into shooting a full roll of double exposures, whereas you can just shoot one here and there when using the other techniques.

 If you are taking this route, the simplest way to align the frames is by marking the film before your first pass, then moving the marking to the same position before the second pass.

Additionally, try to avoid rewinding the leader all the way into the canister after shooting through your roll the first time. Rewind slowly, and wait for a “click” that happens when the film fully separates from the take-up spool. Then you can safely open the camera and prepare for the next set of exposures. If you accidentally do wind it all the way in, there are ways to get the leader back out, but it can be a bit frustrating unless you have a special tool.

Method 2: Shoot the same frame twice

The second method is to manually prevent the film from advancing, while still pushing the advance lever to reset the shutter. This approach is definitely preferable to the first, since it allows you to just do a few double exposures, and ensures that the frames stay lined up. Unfortunately, it is only possible on certain film cameras. To know if your specific camera can do this, you’ll want to start by checking the manual for info related to double exposures (most can be found online here). If there’s nothing in the manual, you may need to search around or try it yourself to see if it’s possible.

Assuming that your camera can do this, all you’ll likely need to do is press down the “rewind button” located on the bottom of the camera before advancing the film. (Depending on your camera, you may need to fully hold the button down while advancing).

Method 3: Use your camera’s double exposure feature 

The final, most convenient method is to use a camera’s built-in “multiple exposure” mode. This essentially works the same way as method two, pressing/holding the button advances the frame count but keeps the actual frame in place. Not many older cameras have this functionality, but plenty of cameras from the 1980s and beyond offer it. If yours does, you’ll want to check the manual for info on how to use it.

Ready to try your hand? 

Shooting double exposures is probably one of the all-time classic film experiments and for good reason! It can be done by just about anyone with a camera, and really makes you see the world differently. Whether you randomly shoot through a roll twice or create extremely calculated images, the results can be spectacular! It’s truly a technique with endless possibilities.

Hopefully, this overview of double exposure on film has inspired you to try it out for yourself.

Be sure to use the hashtag #popphotofilm if you do, so we can see your results. If you’re interested in learning about other experimental film techniques, check out more of my work on Instagram and TikTok.

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A playful, illicit urgency under a harsh camera flash. Art on the cusp of creation and the artist on the cusp of being caught. Such was the life documentary photographer Martha Cooper chased as she captured the emerging graffiti scene in 1980s New York City. 

Now, nearly 40 years after the publication of her revered Subway Art, Cooper returns with a companion photo book, Spray Nation. Action, adventure, and artistic anarchy abound, it features the photographer’s previously unpublished work, including images of fellow creatives like Patti Astor, Fab 5 Freddy, Rammellzee, DONDI, and LADY PINK.

Even today, Cooper continues to travel the world documenting graffiti culture. When asked why, the answer is just as thrilling.

“I think the illegal aspect is exciting,” she writes to PopPhoto. “As soon as you go on any kind of illegal mission, you understand the thrill because it’s an adventure. It’s an art competition that takes a lot of skill to see who can get up the most with the best style. It takes a lot of planning to pull off a great piece at a great spot and that adds to the excitement.”

Related: Leica’s latest ‘drop’ may be the world’s trendiest camera

A photography trailblazer

Few were better suited to capture the birth of NYC’s underground graffiti culture than Cooper, it turns out. A trailblazer in her field, Cooper claims the distinction as the first female intern at National Geographic and followed up as the first female staff photographer at the New York Post. At the Post, Cooper covered all sorts of news: crime, stakeouts, celebrity portraits, and more. Her “weather shots”—a feature photo thrown into the paper when space was available—are compiled in another book, New York State of Mind.

Then, in 1979, she met the graffiti artist HE3, who would be her connection to a formidable introduction with the artist Donald Joseph White, aka DONDI.

Meeting DONDI

As it turned out, DONDI was already familiar with Cooper the day she and HE3 rode up to his home in Brooklyn.

“When I introduced myself, DONDI said, ‘Oh, Martha Cooper!’ He knew because he had clipped a picture from the Post that I had taken of a kid on a rope swing with a Dondi piece on the wall with my credit line and pasted it in the front of his black book,” Cooper explains. “That was a perfect connection because graffiti writers wanted fame and I had given DONDI a lot of fame with that photo—although at the time, I was surprised to learn that the writer of the graffiti could be identified. That was a revelation.”

The meeting was followed by an invitation from graffiti writer Eric Deal to interview DONDI and his friends. Cooper recalls shooting indoors on Kodachrome 64 ISO. And that was the beginning of her foray into the underground art scene. 

“DONDI was the first graffiti writer I met. He was respected and he vouched for me,” Cooper says. “DONDI introduced me to other writers at the Sam Esses studio in 1981. Relationships evolved from there.”

A subway car sparks a lifelong interest

Though her relationship with DONDI gave Cooper an “in,” the spark that really stoked her interest in graffiti occurred the day she took a hard look at the New York City subway. DONDI constantly referenced it, so Cooper decided to see what the hubbub was about.

“In 1980, I went up to 180th Street in the Bronx where the trains run above ground and started looking,” she recounts. “The first time I went, the LEE train with the poem on it was sitting there. It must have been freshly painted the night before. It was the very first day! I started going back. I had a car and I drove along the tracks looking for interesting backgrounds. The second day, a full BLADE car came by with most of the windows still painted. I shot a few of my best pictures those first few days and that really got me going.”

Dodging danger

A true journalist, Cooper didn’t settle for merely documenting the final product. She also tagged along as the graffiti artists snuck around train yards on early mornings, making their mark with the rising of the sun. 

“To me, the story wasn’t complete until I could see how graffiti was painted,” Cooper shares. “Whenever I was with them it was usually, ‘Let’s get this done.’ It was a mission and they were professionals. They know how to get in, do their thing, and get out. I was definitely an outsider and tried to make myself invisible. I wasn’t a participant observer. I didn’t help carry the paint. I just tried to quietly be a fly on the wall. That was my approach.”

Capturing these clandestine scenes took quick thinking on multiple fronts. At the time, Cooper was shooting film on a Nikon FM. So, in addition to coming up with creative exposure techniques (a flash could draw attention) and angles, reloading the camera was also a factor—all while dodging the law. 

“I was all about, ‘How am I going to capture this?’ What equipment do I need to carry while ducking under the fence and crawling in and out of the yards?” she elaborates. “I couldn’t put anything down. Sometimes a guard would come and I would have to duck under the car near the third rail and think, ‘I hope this train doesn’t move because I’m dead.’ I don’t have any stories of being chased out of the yards but I always knew it could happen and I had to be prepared to run with the camera gear.”

Graffiti culture today

Today, graffiti enjoys wider public acceptance. The medium has even found its way into the contemporary wings of museums and galleries. Back in the 1980s, however, there was a different story. 

“In the early ‘80s, the scene was primarily New York City-based and very underground with few outsiders understanding what was going on,” Cooper remembers. “Today graffiti and the related (but different) street art scene is a huge worldwide art movement.”

Aside from museums, graffiti still remains very much a public, democratic form of art. And Cooper is gratified to see the mainstream audience’s enthusiasm for the medium, from community-painted trains in South Africa to public graffiti events in Tahiti.

On Spray Nation and Subway Art

Following on the heels of Subway Art, Spray Nation is a companion book and collaboration between Cooper and her editor, Roger Gastman. To compile the images, Gastman culled through thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands) of slides, scanning them and planning the layout. When asked how the two tomes compare to the other, Gastman is adamant: Neither is trying to outdo the other.

“They were shot at the same time but are edited very differently for content,” he shares. “For Spray Nation, we labored over thousands of the images that had not been published to find the best of the best of the photos that told a story and were just great photos. Spray Nation is also a landscape format book that is much longer than Subway Art. We would never want to compete or compare to Subway Art—just be a companion.”

A touch of humanity, however, sets Spray Nation apart from its peers. It’s not so much about just the final works proclaiming themselves on screeching trains, it’s also about the people. 

“It was important to group several artists and themes, such as sayings, characters, storefronts, and gallery works together,” Gastman finishes. “It was also important for me to make sure every so often there were people in the photos. That was easier than I thought it would be as Martha did such an amazing job always capturing the story and the scene—and not just the graffiti, as most did.”

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A bird’s eye view gives us the ability to observe everyday places, people, and activities with fresh a fresh perspective. And sometimes, the most unexpected locations yield the most creative results. The Drone Photo Awards are celebrating the year’s best aerial photography and videography, and the winning images are inspiring, heartbreaking, thoughtful, and every emotion in between. 

About the Drone Photo Awards

Related: The best drones of 2022

The worldwide competition celebrates drone photography and video as a spinoff of the Siena Awards, a photography competition that promotes international arts, culture, traditions, and monuments. The Drone Photo Awards are meant to be an avenue to appreciate the craft and separate it from traditional camera photography.

The competition is open to creators using fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles, balloons, blimps, dirigibles, rockets, kites, and parachutes. Take your pick! Participants can submit photos into up to eight categories: Wedding, Nature, People, Urban, Animals, Abstract, Sport, and Video. 

An international jury panel representing six countries chooses the winners. Those selected will have their work showcased at a gallery in Siena, Italy during the Siena Awards Festival and are invited to participate in the opening reception.

The top prize awards €500,000 (USD $502,190) in photography equipment and the title of Drone Photographer of the Year. Category winners receive a Pangea Prize Crystal statuette presented at the awards ceremony in October. The jury also names runners-up for each category, along with highly commended, and commended distinctions. All images are displayed in Siena at the exhibition, “Above Us Only Sky.”

Here are the victors. 

Drone Photographer of the Year

A picture’s worth a thousand words—and so is a good crop. Somewhat far from what the title would have you believe, the winning entry of the Drone Photo Awards actually depicts a secondary fissure close to the main crater of the Fagradalsfjall volcano in Iceland. Armand Sarlangue braved the rain and strong winds during a storm in order to document the event. 

Urban

Serhiy Vovk captures the mesmerizing repetition of Copenhagen’s Kartoffelrækkerne neighborhood in Oesterbro. In its past life, the area served as affordable, working-class housing, but today it’s one of the city’s most sought-after locations.

Wildlife

A fantastic flock of flamingoes fills the frame in Mehdi Mohebipour’s image, which won the Wildlife category.

“Flamingos sleep together at night for greater security and stay close together during the day, thus protecting each other,” Mohebipour shares. “In this crowd of bodies the colorful nuances of the plumage and the reflections of the light stand out.”

Sports

The winner of the Drone Photo Awards Sports category is Daniel Koszela, who submitted this colorful image of skiers racing down the mountain at the 46th Bieg Piastów cross-country skiing competition held in Szklarska Poręba, Poland. The motion blur adds to the frenzied excitement and speed of the race. 

People

Anindita Roy’s winning photograph freezes a moment of calm in the chaos. 

“Dhaka is located on the bank of the famous Buriganga river,” Roy writes. “Sadarghat river port of Dhaka is the busiest port in Bangladesh, with services to most of the districts in the country. People from both sides of the Buriganga river cross it using small boats. The boatmen working on them usually sleep at night on the boats themselves.”

Nature

The ocean meets the desert in a peaceful juxtaposition, as photographed by winner David Rouge on the South Atlantic Ocean. 

Abstract

Saurabh Sirohiya shows the artistic side to an otherwise grueling job: laborers working at a salt pan.

“They move the salt to form circular lines allowing a slow evaporation under the hot sun. At the end of the day the salt will be collected in baskets,” Sirohiya notes. A change in perspective really can reveal the beauty of seemingly mundane tasks. 

Wedding

This is no typical wedding day drone shot. Winner Krzysztof Krawczyk adds an ethereal, fine-art edge to the category with a breathtaking submission.

“The effect of the sun on the water, a felled tree and a brave bride lying on it: a magnificent picture drawn by nature,” Krawczyk says. “The surface of the water looks like a starry night sky, while the bride looks like a dreamy princess.”

Series

To create this series, photographer Dmitry Kokh trekked for 1200 miles along the Chukotka and Wrangel Island coasts in Russia. While taking shelter from a storm on the island of Kolyuchin, Kokh spotted polar bears through his binoculars as they roamed abandoned houses. Kokh employed a drone with low-noise propellers to photograph the bears without disturbing them. 

Video: General

Mauro Pagliai brings viewers around Italy, showcasing the country from north to south, seas to mountains, cities, and valleys—you’ll want to head on an Italian vacation after watching this. 

Video: Photojournalism

Yurii Bobyr presents the stark reality of Ukraine in the wake of Russian’s invasion. 

Video: Travel  

Alen Tkalcec’s winning video is a patchwork quilt of travels. It features hot air balloons and snow-covered peaks rising towards the sky, cliffside towns, pyramids, beaches, and more. If that’s not enough to give you wanderlust, we don’t know what is. 

How to enter the Drone Photo Awards 

The Drone Photo Awards are open to amateurs and professionals alike, and the jury will accept both published and unpublished work. Your first entry is free, or you can submit three images for €20 (USD $20). Each additional image beyond that is €10 (USD $10), with series and video submissions billed at €35 (USD $35). 

Creators can enter their works by May 20 for a discounted rate. The deadline to submit is June 25, but check the website for updates. 

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This story originally appeared on Popular Science.

In suburban Chicago, about 34 miles west of Lake Michigan, sits a hole in the ground that goes about 330 feet straight down. Long ago, scientists had the shaft drilled for a particle physics experiment that’s long vanished from this world. Now, in a few short years, they will reuse the shaft for a new project with the mystical name MAGIS-100.

When MAGIS-100 is complete, physicists plan to use it for detecting hidden treasures: dark matter, the mysterious invisible something that’s thought to make up much of the universe; and gravitational waves, ripples in space-time caused by cosmic shocks like black holes collisions. They hope to find traces of those elusive phenomena by watching the quantum signatures they leave behind on raindrop-sized clouds of strontium atoms.

But actually observing those atoms is trickier than you might expect. To pull off similar experiments, physicists have so far relied on cameras comparable to the ones on a smartphone. And while the technology might work fine for a sunset or a tasty-looking food shot, it limits what physicists can see on the atomic level.

Related: This may be the highest-resolution microscope we’ll ever get

Stanford-developed dark matter camera makes the most of mirrors

Fortunately, some physicists may have an upgrade. A research team from different groups in Stanford, California, has created a unique camera contraption that relies on a dome of mirrors. The extra reflections help them to see what light is entering the lens, and tell what angle a certain patch of light is coming from. That, they hope, will let them peer into an atom cloud like never before.

Your mobile phone camera or DSLR doesn’t care where light travels from: It captures the intensity of the photons and the colors reflected by the wavelengths, little more. For taking photographs of your family, a city skyline, or the Grand Canyon, that’s all well and good. But for studying atoms, it leaves quite a bit to be desired. “You’re throwing away a lot of light,” says Murtaza Safdari, a physics graduate student at Stanford University and one of the creators.

Physicists want to preserve that information because it lets them paint a more complex, 3D picture of the object (or objects) they’re studying. And when it comes to the finicky analyses physicists like to do, the more information they can get in one shot, the quicker and better. 

One way to get that information is to set up multiple cameras, allowing them to snap pictures from multiple angles and stitch them together for a more detailed view. That can work great with, say, five cameras. But some physics experiments require such precise measurements that even a thousand cameras might not do the trick.

So, in a Stanford basement, researchers decided to set out on making their own system to get around that problem. “Our thinking…was basically: Can we try and completely capture as much information as we can, and can we preserve directional information?” says Safdari.

Their resulting prototype—made from off-the-shelf and 3D-printed components—looks like a shallow dome, spangled with an array of little mirror-like dots on the inside. The pattern seems to form a fun optical illusion of concentric circles, but it’s carefully calculated to maximize the light striking the camera.

How the dark matter camera works

For the MAGIS-100 project, the subject of the shot—the cloud of strontium atoms—would sit within the dome. A brief light flash from an external laser beam would then scatter off the mirror-dots and through the cloud at a myriad angles. The lens would pick up the resulting reflections, how they’ve interacted with the molecules, and which dots they’ve bounced off.

Then, from that information, machine learning algorithms can piece the three-dimensional structure of the cloud back together. Currently, this reconstruction takes many seconds; in an ideal world, it would take milliseconds, or even less. But, like the algorithms used to trainy self-driving cars to adjust to the surrounding world, researchers think their computer codes’ performance will improve. 

While the creators haven’t gotten around to testing the camera on atoms just yet, they did try it out by scanning some suitably sized sample parts: 3D-printed letter-shaped pieces the size of the strontium droplets they intend to use. The photo they took was so clear, they could find defects where the little letters D, O, and E varied from their intended design. 

For atom experiments like MAGIS-100, this equipment is distinct from anything else on the market. “The state of the art are just cameras, commercial cameras, and lenses,” says Ariel Schwartzman, a physicist at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California and co-creator of the Stanford setup. They scoured photo-equipment catalogs for something that could see into an atom cloud from multiple angles at once. “Nothing was available,” says Schwartzman.

What’s next for the dark matter camera

Complicating matters is that many experiments require atoms to rest in extremely cold temperatures, barely above absolute zero. This means they require low-light conditions—shining any bright light source for too long could heat them up too fast. Setting a longer exposure time on a camera could help, but it also means sacrificing some of the detail and information needed in the final image. “You are allowing the atom cloud to diffuse,” says Sanha Cheong, a physics graduate student at Stanford University and member of the camera-building crew. The mirror dome, on the other hand, aims to use only a brief laser-flash with an exposure of microseconds. 

Related: DIYer 3D-prints a working 35mm movie camera

The creators’ next challenge is to actually place the camera in MAGIS-100, which will take a lot of tinkering to fit the camera to a much larger shaft and in a vacuum. But physicists are hopeful: A camera like this might go a lot further than detecting obscure effects around atoms. Its designers plan to use it for everything from tracking particles in plasma to measuring quality control of small parts in the factory.

“To be able to capture as much light and information in a single shot in the shortest exposure possible—it opens up new doors,” says Cheong.

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Queen Elizabeth II passed away today at the age of 96. One of the most photographed humans of the 20th century, her own passion for photography was no secret. The late British monarch was often documented with a camera in hand. In fact, images of her chatting up photographers and inspecting camera gear are plentiful.

To celebrate her life and passion for image-making, we’ve gathered together some of our favorite shots of Queen Elizabeth II, the photographer. Each shows her rocking a different camera, from a golden Rollei 35 to a vintage Kodak home movie camera—these are just some of the standouts from her royal collection.

Note: We couldn’t find any images of the late queen shooting with a digital camera—perhaps she was a film fanatic through and through? Let us know if you come across one, info@popphoto.com.

Leica M3

When it comes to the late queen’s favorite camera, we won’t speculate. But she was most often spotted handling a silver Leica M3 with an accessory lightmeter mounted on top. And for good reason, the M3 is an absolute classic, not to mention, a workhorse. And while trendy celebrities may tote Leicas these days for clout, Queen Elizabeth II was rocking one—and actually using it—decades prior. That’s a true icon.

Leica M6

At some point, though, it appears her majesty traded in the Leica M3 for a more modern Leica M6, which offers a built-in lightmeter, among other upgrades. Perhaps the move was simply a means to simplify her kit? After all, the two cameras share the same basic design. If so, there’s something oddly relatable about that.

Gold Rollei 35

Related: I’m obsessed with the Rollei 35 and haven’t picked anything else up in months

This is by far my favorite camera from her majesty’s collection (that I know of). Not only is the Rollei 35 famous for its design but to have it dripped out in gold is beyond legendary.

For those unfamiliar, this is one of the smallest 35mm film cameras ever made, and though it can be cumbersome to use (delicate fingers are a must), it’s capable of absolutely terrific results—truly a camera lover’s camera.

Canon Sure Shot Tele 80 

I must admit, this is an unexpected one. The above image was captured in May 2000, during an era when digital photography was just starting to give film a run for the money. However, as we now know, the late queen seemed keener on celluloid than silicon. So, rather than grab a state-of-the-art, 3-megapixel Canon Powershot G1, her majesty opted for a more humble Canon Sure Shot Tele 80 film camera.

Rolleiflex TLR

Queen Elizabeth II wasn’t just a 35mm photographer, she also dabbled in medium format. And honestly, I can’t think of a more enjoyable medium format camera to shoot with than a Rolleiflex twin lens reflex (TLR). These are wonderful machines to handle, on par with Leicas, and owning one is a testament to any photographer’s excellent taste in gear.

Kodak 16mm cine camera

Related: Everything you need to know to get started with Super 8 film

Finally, a movie camera: Though stills were clearly the late queen’s passion, she was also apparently fond of moviemaking. Here she is in 1953 shooting with the suitably named Kodak Royal, a 16mm, spring-motor-driven cinema camera.

And here’s another photo of her from 1965 with a different cinema camera. Always on the cutting edge, it’s cathartic to think about the late Queen of England nerding out on the latest tech and upgrading her kit accordingly, not just as a stills shooter but as a video enthusiast too.

From one camera nerd to another, Rest in Peace, Your Majesty.

Note: An earlier version of this article misidentified the format of the queen’s cine camera as 8mm.

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