What is a blind double exposure?

In short, it's when you shoot through a whole roll of film, rewind it, then shoot over top of it again. It's different from what most people are referring to when they mention "multiple exposure" or "double exposure" images, because you are not directly controlling what the layers are on a single frame of film. With typical double exposures, you put your camera into a mode that holds the film from advancing. You take one image, then you take another image directly on top of it. You are fully in control of the layers. Blind double exposures are prone to frame line and orientation mismatches plus a lot of happy accidents.

Do I need any special equipment to shoot blind double exposures?

In my opinion, yes. You need a film leader retrieval tool. (Side note: others might suggest you use a hack without purchasing one of these... it's really not worth the heartache.) Once you shoot through the roll the first time, your film will be rewound. In order to reshoot this roll, you need to pull out that handy little film leader so you can reload the film into the camera. It may take a couple attempts to learn how to use this guy, but there are lots of YouTube videos that show you how. If you buy one and are struggling to use it (lol... this was me at first, don't worry), hop on over to Monday Morning Office Hours and I'll walk you through the process.

How do I make my blind double exposures EXTRA vibrant?

Here comes the trade secrets, y'all! I like to use Ultramax film, because I don't care about skin tones and want these to turn out really colorful. It's a consumer stock (cheaper) and 400 ISO, so I don't need a ton of light to make these images work. I like to do these in my Nikon f100 (a normal, not crazy expensive, but absolutely sufficient SLR). I set my ISO to 800 (double the box speed of the film I'm using), and when I meter internally, I just follow the internal meter's neutral setting.

I used a 400 ISO film, but say you used Ektar 100. In this example, where I'm shooting the film through only twice, my ISO would be set at 200. The exposure you'll use will be related to how many times you're going to shoot this film, and light is additive. So you could crank it down two stops and do more passes, etc.

Shooting the through the roll the first time-- Decorative layer

I like to make my first pass through the decorative, whatever-the-heck, pass. I can do this ahead of whenever I want to shoot the content on my roll while I'm at home, whenever I have time. The key to doing these is to get a bunch of vibrant objects (this roll used puff balls, tinsel garlands, and colorful dinosaurs) on top of a black surface (I just used a black T-shirt turned inside out). I used a video light to give extra oomph and brightness to the bits and bobbles. It's not a requirement, but it's nice to do. Then I just rearrange the stuff and shoot it all mostly out of focus, so I'm getting more color blobs than harsh lines and objects.

The reason you use a black background is because wherever there is black, the film will be basically-ish not exposed. Leaving these areas "unexposed" so-to-speak, means that when you shoot the second pass onto these black areas, you'll get better, more true color from the second pass's imagery that falls in these locations.

Rewinding the roll, and prepping to shoot it again

Once you've shot through the roll the entire first time, you'll rewind the film, and the leader will be back in the canister. You'll need to pull the leader back out of the film container using the film retrieval tool I linked above. I mark on the canister that it's a roll for blind doubles with a Sharpie, and then it sits on my mantle until the itch comes to shoot over top of it. When I decide it's time, I load it back in my camera, set my ISO to 800 again (or double whatever the box speed of the film you choose to use is), and get ready to shoot it again.

Shooting through the roll the second time -- Subject layer

The first rule is to make sure you're setting your camera at double the box speed of your film. After that, the goal is to have fun. Shoot whatever you like, however you like. If you're shooting portraits and want them to be extra vibrant, I recommend throwing a black blanket or something behind their head. This is for the same reason we did the black background for the decorative layer. If we've left the center of the film unexposed-ish from the decorative layer and put colorful things along the edges, then putting the person in that unexposed black section will make their face show up reallllllly well. Since the edges are unexposed-ish it will also make the decorative elements vibrant too.

I see a lot of incredible blind double exposures done with decorative elements that were on white backgrounds. Feel free to give this a try! This will neutralize some of the vibrancy of those elements and the top image because you are exposing the film all across the film. It'll be a lighter final image, maybe not quite as vibrant. Still beautiful!

Rewind the film, develop normally, then scan yourself!

Okay okay, I'm obviously really biased, but there are really good reasons you should digital camera scan blind double rolls yourself. More so than normal film. If you want to learn how to digital camera scan your film at home, sign up for my class! If you don't know what it is, sign up for my newsletter and you'll find a video showing why it's so powerful.

Cropping: Film is continuous. By shooting blind doubles, you've continuously exposed the film over the entire emulsion with the two rounds of images. This is unlike when you shoot a roll of film only once through and you've got these clean gaps between images where the emulsion went completely unexposed. As a result, you can get wildly different crops on your images with only slight adjustments in where you begin your scanning.Since blind double exposures are a very creative, "film just knows," experience, I think having full control over these end crops are crucial. See the images below for some examples of how cropping during scanning can really change the outcome, especially with blind double, continuously exposed film.

Color grading: I want my blind doubles' colors the way I want them. Typically that means vibrant. But the reality of it is, scanners aren't designed to auto color grade your weird double exposures. If you pay for automatic lab scans only or flat scans, the colors are going to be wildly off. If you pay for a really good tech, they're going to make your images look good, but it's going to be hard to truly interpret the final colors in the creative vein that you entered into this exercise aiming to achieve. It's doable, but I personally do not want to give up that much control. The example below is a lab scan vs digital camera scan of a multiple exposure image from a different roll (not a blind double, this roll was shot only once through). You can see quickly how much control I would've lost had I not scanned this image myself.

Wanna see how mine turned out?

Assessing the results

I like simply enjoying results, but it's also healthy to look back and say to yourself "what really worked for me and what would I want to improve upon next time?" Here is a brief assessment of the images.

Accounts to follow with cool double expo

@bluebettyphotography Qweeeeeeen of 'em, she got me into them when she did some at a session she photographed of my daughter and I

@itsamyliz

Brian Smith has a how-to page on them here

This person does blind doubles where one run is under water and one is above water!

Now it's your turn! Tag @tinymonstersfilmlab if you give this a try!