Complementary subjects

Find a theme you can use to tie together the different shots in your multiple exposure

It can be tricky to work out which subjects are going to work well when they’re superimposed in a multiple exposure. You could, after all, combine absolutely anything – a cheese grater and a coelacanth, for example. One way that you can focus your creativity, though, is to think about subjects that complement each other both visually and conceptually.

If you’ve photographed a bird in silhouette against a white sky, for example, then perhaps a shot of a blue sky with white clouds or an image of feathers could work when it’s visible in the bird’s shape. If it’s a bird you would associate with water, how about using a shot of the sea instead?

Colour plays an important role in multiple exposures. Sometimes complementary colours may be all that you need to provide a link between two images; but there may be some instances where removing the colour altogether and creating a black-and-white multiple exposure can successfully ‘hide the joins’ and allow viewers to focus on the overall effect rather than the individual elements.

Ancient art This Asian sculpture and the spring blossom felt like a natural fit, both conceptually and in terms of contrasting colours, and blend together to produce a contemporary and stylish image.