Photomontage on camera

[LF45al]

Hello All

I have a Toyo 45A, and I´m looking for some info/resources since i need to work doing composite photography on-camera.

Long time ago, i had a teacher who use to do this, working with the light and exposing the different areas of the sheet by cutting the light and only throwing the light over the areas of the objects that he wants to capture. At the end he was able to create very compact images using different exposures on the same sheet.

He said that was a technique of publicity, and used for studio photographers all over the world, but i´m not able to find any information of this technique. I would like to learn it and go in deep.

He used to use a white boards marker pens to delimitate the borders of the areas to expose on the ground glass as a reference.

Since is for me impossible to contact this teacher again, i would like to know if there is any publication out there, or pdf etc. Even any advice from the forum users should be great.

Thanks in advance

[cyrus]

Hello All

I have a Toyo 45A, and I´m looking for some info/resources since i need to work doing composite photography on-camera.

Long time ago, i had a teacher who use to do this, working with the light and exposing the different areas of the sheet by cutting the light and only throwing the light over the areas of the objects that he wants to capture. At the end he was able to create very compact images using different exposures on the same sheet.

He said that was a technique of publicity, and used for studio photographers all over the world, but i´m not able to find any information of this technique. I would like to learn it and go in deep.

He used to use a white boards marker pens to delimitate the borders of the areas to expose on the ground glass as a reference.

Since is for me impossible to contact this teacher again, i would like to know if there is any publication out there, or pdf etc. Even any advice from the forum users should be great.

Thanks in advance

I think this is basically the "painting with light" technique, except that he included drawing on the ground glass in order to better align his selective lighting to specific areas. "Painting with light" is pretty well known technique. There are many variations but basically it is the use of selective lighting to brighten up specific areas in a scene separate from other areas. This can be done with pin-point lighting, which usually involves a long exposure and movement, or with diffuse lighting, which is how your teacher was doing it as I understand the description. The trick is to get the proper exposure settings.

[LF45al]

Thanks so much for your feedback!

I gonna check painting with light then, it is a good path to find out what´s going on and then i´m pretty sure i´ll find more info about specific studio publicity technique.

best,

[dsphotog]

Wedding photogs used to shoot a classic, if not cliche' montage of a bride & groom looking down in the the top half of the image, with the bottom half being a long view of their wedding inside the church.
It gave the effect of them floating above, watching their own wedding. I always thought it was creepy, like an out of body experience.
This was done using a mask with a feathered edge mounted in front of the lens, moved to first cover the bottom of the image, then the second exposure was made later covering the top.
A classic controlled double exposure.
Cokin makes a filter to do this.

[LF45al]

that sounds funny (The creepy wedding picture) i never saw that before and i was curious. I found one pic of that and it blends pretty well.

I think i know the helpful kind of filter you said, i had a little catalog of Cokin and they offer a square filter with two areas one transparent and one of very high density or opaque which you can turn with the filter holder and achieve this effect. That´s very helpful to bring this to my mind, thanks.

That filter is another useful thing to have inside the "toolbox", which can add complexity to the montage, and i´m remembering now they had other effects (Like circles, etc) in the same way.

[LF45al]

Thank you very much!

That´s exactly what i was looking for. Build a complex image with multiple exposures. I´ll check it out

Best,

[Brian C. Miller]

Hello All

Welcome to the forum!


I have a Toyo 45A, and I´m looking for some info/resources since i need to work doing composite photography on-camera.

Either use a mask, or else expose against a black background. Plan out the exposure and positioning ahead of time, and use a marked-up transparency on your ground glass for complex compositions.


Wedding photogs used to shoot a classic, if not cliche' montage of a bride & groom looking down in the the top half of the image, with the bottom half being a long view of their wedding inside the church.
It gave the effect of them floating above, watching their own wedding. I always thought it was creepy, like an out of body experience.

Somewhere I have a book on location photography written by a fellow using a Rollei. He did photographs like that on location, instead of doing it in the darkroom.

Now, as for creepy, would you rather see the bride looking up at her wedding, from below?

[LF45al]

Hi Brian,

The black background yes. Good point thank you. I´ll use continuous light for this, and I´ll try to create a device like barn doors, so i can cut the light. and with a fuji PA 45, i can do the first proofs, or maybe to start some pics taken with the slr can help.

In order to be precise at the ground glass a transparency can be good since i can use more than one at the time very good advice.