Photographic Amusements, Ninth Edition / Including A Description of a Number of Novel Effects Obtainable with the Camera

FREAK PICTURES BY SUCCESSIVE EXPOSURES.

We have already described the various remarkable photographic pictures which may be taken by successive exposures with the same individual in different positions against a perfectly black and non-actinic background. This, however, is not easily obtained, and a French photographer, M. Bracq, has invented an ingenious attachment to a camera by which the same effects may be obtained with any background and under the ordinary conditions of amateur photography. The following description is from La Nature translated in the Popular Science News.

FIG. 70.

The apparatus, Fig. 70, is attached to the back of the camera, and consists of a frame suitable for holding the usual ground glass, or plate holder. Directly in front of the plate holder is placed an opaque screen perforated with a horizontal slit the width of the photographic plate used. By means of a screw and a crank the screen with its opening may be made to move up and down before the plate, thus allowing all parts of it to be successively exposed. A pointer connected with the screen shows the position of the slit at any time when it is covered by the plate holder.

The operation of the apparatus is evident from the above description. To take the picture illustrated in Fig. 71, for instance, the table with the boy upon it is placed in the proper position and supported by planks, another table, or in any convenient way. After properly focusing it on the ground glass, the screen is screwed down till the opening is at the bottom of the camera, and the plate holder being placed in position, the slide is drawn and the handle turned till the indicator shows that the opening has reached a point corresponding to the image of the bottom of the table on the plate. The slide is then replaced in the plate holder, the table and its support removed, and the boy placed in the second position, and the exposure continued by screwing up the screen until the entire plate has been impressed with the double image, which, upon development, appears as shown in the illustration.

FIG. 71.

The perforated screen may also be made to move horizontally as well as vertically across the plate, and by a combination of the two directions the same individual may be taken four or more times in different positions in the same photograph. Many amusing and astonishing effects may be obtained by the simple means which will readily suggest themselves to any practical photographer.

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