Asheville fine art Photographer- double exposure photography

Jun 2

Double exposure picture of Olive trees in Andalusia, Spain

It started as an accident…

Double or multiple exposure photography forced its way into my life by a not so happy accident. I photographed my very first wedding back in 1984.

I was a kid helping my Dad out on the weekends with his not so thriving wedding photograph side hustle. His day job was a super fish scientist and the art of the camera was one of his many hobbies. He taught me everything I needed to know for that first wedding. Of course I was just 14 years old and knew everything anyways. (having a 13 year old myself right now, I know the pain my father suffered!!lol)

Anyways, on that fateful day in August we walked into the wedding day armed with 2 Nikkormat FT 35mm cameras and 2 Mamiya RB67 medium format cameras. State of the art gear for back then. We were loaded and ready to make some seriously great photos and some serious $$$. (If I remember correctly we were raking in $350 and delivering a wedding album.) Everything went as planned. Everything worked as it should. Everyone was on time and it was to be a great success. I knew I had made some amazing frames! LOTS of them.(too many?) But wait a minute, you said it was a fateful day!? Just keep reading…

Once back home in our basement darkroom/ laundry room, we loaded the rolls up and started developing the B&W film. (At this time we didn’t have a color set up so we sent it off to Chic’s Camera in Columbus, Ohio and would pick it up the following week.) We hung the B&W to dry and would inspect in the morning. I do recall that my medium format film looked a bit strange but there was something on the film and that is what mattered.

Long story short…er, I had exposed multiple times on single frames of my film! My dad was more than a bit peeved at me. You see, the Mamiya RB67 had a lever, that when cranked, it cocked the shutter to shoot the next picture. It also had a lever to advance the film to the next frame for said picture. I seemed to have overlooked this lever more than a few times. As it turns out about 80% of all of my film had many different scenes stacked upon one another. (in art photography terms, a multiple exposure) But Dad did NOT see the “art” in it! He was pissed. I am fairly certain the client was too. Btw, all of the color film was the same. Sorry Dad.

Over the years I have made many double and multiple exposures. Most of which were on purpose! ;} Here are just a few of my favorites in nom particular order. I might add that when i do “accidentally” make one, I am now over the moon excited about the possibilities that live within the frame. Its kind of like the universe speaking through it to me. (The last frame below, being a grand example of this!)

My name is Parker J Pfister. I live and work as a photographic artist out of Asheville, North Carolina. I do lots of really, really, ridiculously, amazing things, such as portraits, editorial, commercial and fine art photography.

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