Photo Bio #6 - How to Create a Twin in Photoshop!

When playing with images on the computer, I noticed that you couldn't assemble multiple images seamlessly unless the backgrounds aligned perfectly. So I decided to try taking a bunch of pictures without moving my camera. Sounds easy right? The thing is, I didn't have a tripod yet. So I began thinking of places around my neighbourhood where I could set my camera that seem to be beside an interesting scene.

Near the Festival Theatre is a cement sign that made the perfect location. Right across from the sign is the fancy front doors to the theatre. The next thing was that I didn't have a remote, or a friend to trigger the camera for me. My solution was to use the 10 second timer on the camera, so for every shot I had to carefully press the trigger, run to the spots I had to be in, and pose before the 10 seconds ran out. The crazy part is, since Canon didn't implement an intervalometer into the 5D series I still use the 10 second time for situations like this. Very carefully I planned out the placement of the Me's and executed the best I could.

Once the images were shot I loaded them into fireworks. Using Cut + Paste I assembled them together. Something I missed in my first few cuts was including the shadows along with the Me's. Despite it being a bit sloppy, it was a big success for me seeing that the idea worked and fit together so perfectly.

Later on in high school we had an assignment where we had to create a poster for either a class or club within the school. I got the Theatre Program, so my friend Alex and I decided to shoot a Multiple Alex shoot. As you can see below, the shot includes a bunch of Alex's acting out together on the stage as well as some in the audience. We aced the assignment, and the theatre program ended up using it as an actual poster later that year.

Fast forward to my first year in college, we had an assignment where we had to use basic skills we had learned so far to take a self portrait. See where I'm going with this? Yup, multiple me shot. By this time I had fully switched to photoshop, and used layers (CS2 just came out I think). I had 5 Me's sitting in a cafeteria booth, playing with a folded paper toy, I forget what they are called, but it's kind of like a fortune teller (any help here?). My main goal was to have the different Me's interacting with each other. I drew it out ahead of time then wore different shirts for each. I used a water bottle on the table to make the different Me's hands line up with each other. Once again, the multiple me shots never fail. I aced this one scoring 100% on the assignment.

I have shot several more since, it's a fun and easy photoshop project that may be a little cheesy, though if done well can make people take a second look at your image.

Another interesting note is nowadays when shooting most concepts in still life advertising, it makes sense to shoot with a similar mindset. If shooting a burger advertisement, shoot pictures of the fresh assembled sandwich before the cheese fully melts. Shoot it with the ketchup as it drips down the sides. Then perfect every little detail, and edit them all together in Photoshop for the best image. It's how the professionals do it, and it's the same technique that I figured out years ago.

Have you used a technique like this? What did you shoot with it?