In my never-ending quest for vintage panoramic photos, I sometimes come across ‘trick’ photos where there seem to be twins at either end of the photo.  Is it twins, or is it the same person?

Manor-Millersville High School (Pa.), class photo in Washington DC, June 5, 1947, photo by Central Photo

I recently found a double-double exposure with real twins at either end of the group photo!

This trick is possible because of the way a panoramic photo is shot.  The camera, set up on a rotating clockwork, starts on one end of the group of people and slowly pans from left to right.

Here are the blonde twins on the left...

And again on the right!

So in this case the blonde twins pose on the left and once the camera moves to the right and they are out of the shot, they duck down and run behind the people who are standing and run to the other end of the shot where they pose and appear again on the right.  

You can see a great video of how this is achieved on the Library of Congress website here.  They call this double exposure a ‘pizza run’ but there doesn’t seem to be any set name for it (or reason it’s called a pizza run). 

© All text and images are copyright of Jeni Sandberg