Double Exposure - Panoramic Photo Tricks

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

William Henry Jackson Photochroms - Photography of the American West

WH Jackson, Midway Point, Monterey, California

Lately I am fascinated by the works of American photographer William Henry Jackson (1843-1942), who was renowned for documenting the expansion of the West.  I have found a couple of his images taken on the Pacific coast--this one is Midway Point in Monterey, California.

WH Jackson, Crow in feather headdress, Montana, late 19th century.  See more here.

After fighting in the Civil War, Jackson traveled extensively throughout the American West and photographed the natural wonders he saw there as part of the US Government Surveys. His 1870s images along the Yellowstone River were instrumental in persuading Congress to make Yellowstone the first National Park in 1872.

WH Jackson, The Cleveland Arcade, Library of Congress collection

Jackson traveled all over the United States and around the globe, documenting cities, people and landscapes of all sorts.  He worked for several railroad companies and shot the locomotives that became emblematic of the push west.  Architect Daniel Burnham hired Jackson to document the buildings of Chicago’s 1893 Columbian Exposition before it was razed.  These were published as Jackson’s Famous Pictures of the World’s Fair--you can see them all on the Ball State University website.

WH Jackson, Administration Building, World's Columbian Exposition, c. 1894.

In 1897, after capturing the American landscape for more than 25 years, Jackson sold his extensive archive of negatives to the Detroit Photographic Company and joined the firm. By 1906, the firm changed its name to the Detroit Publishing Company and used Jackson’s negatives to produce countless color postcards. Jackson’s archive of negatives was eventually purchased by Henry Ford and is now divided between the Colorado Historical Society and the Library of Congress. 

WH Jackson, Castle Rock, Santa Barbara, California

The images I have are photochroms, color lithographs made from a black and white photographic negative (the process originated in Switzerland, hence the spelling; it is also sometimes spelled ‘photochrome’).  At least four color plates are used in the process, resulting in a rich, vibrant image. The printed surface has some shine to it, it is not matte like a print in a book.

These photochroms were printed by the Detroit Photographic Company and are generally marked on both the print and mat. 

I'm always looking for more of these!  I especially like California image or other scenes at the beach.


© All text and images are copyright of Jeni Sandberg, except where noted

Vintage Panoramic Photos

Current obsession:  panoramic photos.

Some panoramic photos from my collection--the arrangement is a bit wonky because I keep adding to them!

When the iPhone 5 was released, its camera had a new ‘panorama’ feature, but they were more than 100 years late to the party.  I’ve collected wide format photos for a while, but lately the quest for more has become a bit all-consuming.

Brooklyn Bridge, c. 1896, from the Library of Congress

These wide format photos, generally from the first half of the 20th century, depict everything from landscapes to baseball teams, bathing beauties, school portraits, dinner parties and any number of other gatherings.   Usually, they are big--sometimes called ‘yard-long’ photos--and though they were certainly made in other parts of the world, I like to think that they are particularly American in their attempt to capture the broad scope of the landscape and the people within it.

Top: Dogsledding on the Ziegler expedition to the North Pole, 1905  Bottom: The no-longer-extant Haleiwa Hotel, North shore of Oahu  Both from LOC.

First, the bad news about this blog post, and a cliche at that--the images I will put up of various panoramic photos really don’t do them justice.  They were printed in a large format for a reason.  The point of these large photos was to capture a large scene and allow your eye to slowly rove over the details.  Each face in the portrait or building in the city could be taken in and examined just as if you were there. 

Winter Bathing at Miami Beach, January 1921.  LOC.

A brief history:

Panoramas in the truest sense attempted to recreate an environment in 360 degrees.  Artists made the first efforts at large-scale paintings that depicted broad landscapes and battles. One such work is John Vanderlyn’s 1818 panorama of the Palace at Versailles, on view in the American Wing at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.  With the advent of photography, depicting a sweeping landscape became possible by using multiple plates.  For instance, a series of daguerreotypes of Cincinnati was taken in 1848 and showed the skyline of the midwestern town through eight successive photographs.

No. 10 Cirkut camera.  The circular section at the top of the tripod rotates on a clockwork. 

Panoramic photography really took off with the advent of film and in 1905, the Cirkut camera.  The camera was patented by William J. Johnston of the Rochester Panoramic Camera Company, which was almost immediately purchased by a subsidiary of Eastman Kodak.  This tool for panoramic photography then became more widely available throughout the US and across the globe.

Central Photo Co. of Washington DC setting up a panoramic photo at the US Capitol.  The firm is still in business.  

The Cirkut camera changed the game by using a simple clockwork (like a wind-up toy) to rotate the camera at the same rate the film advanced, allowing for a longer, uninterrupted exposure.  The largest Cirkut camera could shoot negatives that were 16 inches high and the 18 foot length of film could be cut to any size (Photographic Apparatus for the Professional, c.1906, pp. 17-19).  Most photos I have are in the 2-3 foot length range, but some photos measured as long as five feet.

Land of Flowers dance, Florida, circa 1920.  LOC.

The best way I found to learn how a panoramic photo is made is to check out The Library of Congress website.  They have an amazing collection of panoramic photos, as well as videos that show how they were produced.  Check out the demonstration here.

Yale Varsity Crew and Substitutes, 1911.  LOC.

I have spent *hours* on the site--you can search their photos by subject, location and photographer.  I also recommend America by the Yard: Cirkut Camera Images from the Early Twentieth Century by Robert B. MacKay--it's a nice large format book with lots of fold outs to give you a good sense of the images.

Detail from the Yale Crew photo

Group portraits are are my favorite type of panoramic photo.  I’m not exactly a ‘joiner’--group activities give me a bit of a twitch--but somehow the dynamics within these group portraits fascinate me.  I play The Breakfast Club game--who was the Princess, the Brain, the Jock?  Are they having fun at the gathering?  Was anyone misbehaving?  And the fashions from different eras are always fun to look at, too.  The shoes, the hair!

Tuckerton (NJ) High School class photo at Mount Vernon, 1926. From my personal collection.

Loving the men's fashions.

Sullen teenager alert!  

One of the issues with panoramic photography is the distortion caused by the rotation of the camera--you can end up with that wonky fish-eye effect where straight lines appear drastically curved.  In group portraits, the trick is to arrange the people in the picture in a way that corrects the distortion.  Usually, the front row of people will be lined up in a curve that corresponds to the arc of the rotating camera.  On film, the people appear in straight lines--but when you look, you can see that there is often a pretty big gap between the people in the front row and the row behind them, especially at the ends.

Chi Psi fraternity boys at Williams College, 1963--a relatively late example.

I mainly buy group portraits taken at historic locations such as Mount Vernon or Niagara Falls.  I also like landscapes if they have something of particular interest to me (places I’ve been or would like to go, cute vignettes with people).  I like the military photos the least, because all I can think of is ‘how many of these young soldiers went off to war and died a horrible death?’  Not fun on my wall. 

Detail of photos from my collection--the beach scene at the lower right is Long Beach, California, circa 1920

On my wish list:  group portraits at Mount Rushmore, New York City, Niagara Falls, Mount Vernon and other famous sites; beach or surfing scenes; and anything shot in Hawaii!

I’ll write a separate post about fun tricks found in panoramic photos…

From Decorology.

© All text and images are copyright of Jeni Sandberg except where noted