The Fine Art of Using Double Exposure in Wedding Photography

Your wedding album is not just a keepsake of your big day. They are made out of your emotions that you felt during the special moments of your wedding. Fleeting moments are trapped in a camera’s lens, giving you tangible reminiscences of your nuptial. No doubt! – Couples love it when their wedding photographs evoke a beautiful, artistic feeling, adding that extra magical touch to their preserved memories. It’s vital for your wedding album to carry the most interesting and captivating shots that would add more meaning to the frozen moments. 

This is where double exposures come in! Bringing to you enthralling visual storytelling, double exposures are now a hot pick among couples. Wedding photographers are now turning towards this intriguing technique to add an ethereal effect to your already entrancing shots. 

How can it make your photographs better, you ask? Thanks to renowned photographers – Geeshan Bandara, Dimitri Crusz, Rasanga Dissanayake and Kushantha Hewapathirana, we are able to give you an insight into this trending photography technique. Well, why not dive into the next few pages to find out? 

Understanding Double Exposures

Double exposure photography is the superimposition of two images onto each other to create one image. Blending in more than two images is the art of multiple exposures. This technique involves exposing the film to light once in order to create an image, wind it back and do it again to create another image. Double exposures allow the photographer to capture multiple images on the same photo, narrating a more meaningful story through the photo. In wedding photography, double exposures are often used to merge the couple with their background – be it a beautiful bed of flowers or a field of lush greenery. 

The Birth of Double Exposures

This fascinating art has been around for as long as photography has lived – over 100 years. Double exposures came into life way before the digital era began. However, this technique has been gaining popularity since photographers switched from film, but perhaps a lot more in the past 9 years. 

The Specialty of Double Exposures

Unlike editing in post-production, double exposure photography gives the photographer the opportunity to capture something unique using two separate shots. The specialty lies in the technical accuracy of the photograph in creating the image as well as in achieving a third dimension through the use of two individual images. Double exposures are also a creative outlet for the photographer to capture some great images that stand out from the rest. Apart from this, the beauty of this technique is that it opens up so many possibilities to get creative. It gives a photographer double the power of storytelling in just one picture. Double exposures are a reflection of the photographer’s imagination. It paves the way to creative narration. 

The Importance of Double Exposures in a Wedding Album

Double exposures in a wedding album can be used to transform ordinary photographs into powerful masterpieces. Wedding photos that have a beautiful, artistic touch to them are simply breathtaking. Every couple desires to tell their stories uniquely in the form of visual art, and double exposures offer that opportunity to the couples. However, the importance of a photo made using this technique is entirely dependent on the couple and what they want out of the photos. 

Making Double Exposures Interesting

While interesting is subjective, the possibilities are endless. There are so many different elements one can combine, and with digital camera and in-depth understanding of how light and double exposures work, one has far more options than film double exposures. However, it all comes down to how the photographer approaches a double exposure shot, and what he would like to achieve from it. Making the shot interesting also depends on the ideas and elements the location has to offer.  Some days there are no elements and some days, they are just all over the place. Now, with digital photography, it is easier to use the same principles in different times to blend a double exposure image.

Replicating the Art through Photoshop

With technology opening up to vast opportunities, double exposures can now be achieved through Photoshop. Enabling even an amateur to pick up the art through countless editing programs, photographers believe there would be no vast difference in the end shot. Whether the effect was achieved through the camera or through Photoshop, both would appear as double exposures. 

There’s massive freedom in trying to edit two images and create double exposure through Photoshop. One can choose his images randomly and play around with the opacity, compositions and with all the other options available. It has its own creative freedom. Living in an advanced era, artists must embrace technology and not shun away from it. However, there’s a thin line between a gimmicky photo and a creative, classy one.

There is no limit to how one can manipulate an image with Photoshop. If the photographer is creating a double exposure in camera, he is restricted to what he can shoot and his understanding of light is narrowed. When capturing a double exposure from the camera straight on the same image, one has to be precise in what he wants to do. Creative imagination is the top-most requirement to come up with ideas and manifest them using the correct techniques. For this reason, one would garner far more respect for a double exposure image done in camera than using Photoshop.

Double Exposures for Magical Wedding Shots

Portraying a couple’s love, happiness and all their other emotions they feel on their big day makes any double exposure shot enticing. Unique stories have exquisite beauty. It’s up to the photographer to use his creativity in bringing out the couples’ extraordinary stories through double exposures, using fascinating elements. 

Captivating Elements for Double Exposures

It’s all in the surrounding. One key element for double exposures would be light and how it will make the blended double exposure look incredible. When one doesn’t have preconceived notions of what he is going to use for the double exposures, each shot comes out uniquely. This way couples don’t get the same shots as the rest of them. However, some common, easier elements to incorporate into double exposures are trees and flowers.