This little project derives from a previous experiment about multiple exposure (culminated with the collection The flower and the leaf). Few months ago I went to Kew Gardens for a job for my agency. I went two days in a row because there were a lot of thing to see (and also because I really love the park) and I ended up with something like 200 good photos. Not all of them were suitable for Alamy but (as usual) I kept the “leftovers” anyway, planning to use them sooner or later.

The idea here is to give the viewer the feeling of discover some old, forgotten Victorian age plates, maybe discarded by the photographer because faulty (the double exposures). The English gardens work perfectly well to maintain the illusion of the historical period and the result is, I believe, quite convincing.

There are two versions for every picture, one in sepia tone and another one with faded colours. Still I’m not sure which one is better, they look very different, both good in their own way.

The double exposure gives the photos a peculiar atmosphere: it is real -it’s a photo after all- but at the same time there is something mysterious about it, something magical. To obtain this effect, I dug in my memories. When I was a child, I used to play in the huge garden around our house. I remember very well the feeling of been alone in what I considered my kingdom, how amazing was to play in that enchanted land full of fantastical creature and adventures.

I see the Victorian Age as a child’s faded memory because its recollections came to me through literature. Jules Verne, the Italian adventures’ writer Emilio Salgari, Albert Robida with its Voyages très extraordinaires de Saturnin Farandoul and the wonderful films of Georges Méliès, I grew up with all of them and they still live in me.

The return of the Giant Hogweed

Multiple exposures are quite easy to blend in Photoshop: what you need is to open two or three or more pictures of the same size (not a lot more otherwise the result could be too much chaotic) and underexpose them a bit; then just use the “screen” mode to blend the layers together leaving the one at the bottom untouched. Another way to achieve a similar result, is to use Picasa, the free graphic editor from Google which has a specific entry to blend together multiple exposures. There are pros and cons about the use of Picasa for this specific task: the pros are that it’s fast and that the software takes care of the exposure (so you don’t have to underexpose the images before); the cons are that the resulting picture can be saved as jpg only and that the ppi can be (I believe) no more of 72.

» view here the final collection “The Victorian Explorer”

» view here “Limbus” created using the same technique