Multiple Image Photography – Invention
The Milwaukee Art Museum displayed a photo collage done by David Hockney. It was shot from Mather Point on the south rim of the Grand Canyon. It was eight feet wide and actually was comprised of more than 100 individual shots (three rolls of film!) that he pieced together into a composite. I was blown away. It was way beyond the usual single-frame snapshot. It was like being there.
I went away thrilled with the idea. I interpreted it in my German-English way and built a camera mount to scientifically shoot a sequence of photos that would all fit together edge-to-edge and, importantly, with no parallax shift. I started with film and assembling hard copy prints, long before the digital stitching that we can do today. While David Hockney collaged his individual photos together with overlaps, I put mine together in an edge-to-edge mosaic.
I had several showings awhile back, and people would look at the photographs very closely. They would see how the elements along the edges fit together, both horizontally and vertically.
They would admire the level of sharp detail. People would come to recognize what was going on and they’d turn to me and ask, “How did you do that?” Pretty cool.
Multiple image photographs have been around since the first generation of photographers with daguerreotypes in the 1840’s. You may have tried to shoot a contiguous sequence yourself to capture the big scene, and you really enjoyed the result when you laid out the photos. However, I have not seen anyone using measurements to shoot both horizontally and vertically so the individual photos are exposed edge to edge. Hence, the asserted invention.
When you shoot a photo upward or downward, you get keystone distortion. When shooting up, the top of the photo tapers in, for example. For my work, I get repeated information between adjacent photos. It adds intrigue, I think. David Hockney created is photo collage in an overall keystone shape to deal with the distortion. I just let it go!
Here are some examples, both from the film days and the more recent digital days:
