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October 11, 2008 |
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Mysterious Photo
FOUND by Anna
in St. Louis, Missouri
I found this at work (an office store that has a copy center) just sitting on one of the display furniture chairs. I took black and white photography in high school and college, and this looks like someone actually developed it themselves in a darkroom. I was trying to think of how they did it -- two negatives overlaying each other? Or one negative exposed on the paper and then another? I'm not sure. But it's dang cool, that's for sure.
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Alive January 05, 2007 |
It Only Takes Two... February 01, 2004 |
Sorry For Laughing July 25, 2005 |
How Tidy Is This Now December 13, 2006 |
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We collect FOUND stuff: love letters, birthday cards, kids' homework,
to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, telephone bills, doodles -
anything that gives a glimpse into someone
else's life. Anything goes...
I saw the keyboard before I saw the woman's face.
Yep, it IS a hecka cool picture -- very artsy, and looks well thought out. [I've managed to do a double-exposure or two - but never on purpose!!]
Hey Night -- me too; keyboard first! (hi!)
Camelia, you're from Northern California too :)
Sometimes when you get photos developed, different photos merge together creating a new weird one. I have a few that accidentally merged two different trips to Disneyland.
But maybe it was intentional.
where is the woman's face?
Easier to see the woman's face if you go below the picture and scroll UP....for some reason. I wuzgonna say "it's upside down" but then I realised it depends on what you want to see which way is up.
Rather like an Oz friend's t-shirt that shows the world map with Oz etc at the top, and underneath in Gothic lettering it says, "Oh yeah? Says you!"
I didn't se the face for a god few minutes, then when I did I cussed out loud, amazing.
She has a piano on her mind.
o.0 How could you not see the woman's face?
Maybe I just have an uber-visual brain, but I saw both at once and then had to figure out what the thing behind her was. However you see it, it's a really clever photo, double exposure like that must be incredibly hard to take.
I think that you can do this deliberately with a Holga Camera. My friend was a photographer and she specialized in double exposures using one.
You can do this by re-using a roll of film or using a manual camera and not advancing one frame and taking a 2nd exposure on it.
@Geek - haha! Maybe she's a musician?
This is one hell of an eerie photo. I noticed the face first and it freaked the hell out of me. I was surprised not more people think this photo is creepy and not more people saw the face first.
I, too, saw the keyboard before the face.
That's a really cool picture. Kind of creepy, though.
Wow thats a nice picture. I saw the womans face first hehe.. just look at that huge hoop earring!
Unbelievable!!! This a remarkable fluke, (if it wasn't intentional) how classy she looks...she could be a piano player, it looks as though the keyboard is indwelling her. Or maybe the face conjured up the keyboard?
Whatever the case, I just love how both theface and the keyboard converge.
Definitely, one of my faves.
I'm thinking this must be a reject from Eno's stack of possible album art.
when i looked at this last night at about two in the morning is saw a tall building and...just swirls and stuff. when i looked at today i immediately saw the face and the keyboard.
weird huh?
My daughter had a Holga and did stuff like this.
However, don't think this one was on purpose
I only saw the keyboard at first. This is beautiful. I would like to frame it and put it above my piano.
Nice. Ethereal. Diaphanous. Aery.
(That's enough brain power for the day)
o wowwww how could i have not seen her! that is really beautiful now that i see it.
WTF? I see an upside-down keyboard and some weird, white light. Virgin Mary sightings?
Maybe it is time to hit the sack
Double exposures have been around as long as photography has. You can make a double exposure with a glass plate camera, it doesn't have to be a Holga, whatever that is.
So I'm going to be a bit of a photography nerd here...
This picture isn't your typical double exposure. Notice that you can see the sprocket holes of the piano picture. The neck of the woman extends beyond these sprocket holes. Thus, these two pictures were not taken on the same frame.
Another thing to notice about these sprocket holes... the holes towards the top of the picture are considerably darker than those at the bottom. That leads me to believe that the piano picture isn't a print, but a test strip of a print to used to determine the correct exposure for enlargement.
This is my theory: someone exposed the test strip on the paper, forgot about it, and then exposed the print of the woman over it on accident.
Quite the happy little mistake.
The best way to kill a ghost is to squash it under an upside-down piano.
It's not a piano, by the way. From the shape of the keys and the knobs/sliders you can tell its some kind of electric organ (not a Hammond, though).
So Flargy, what are you? Some kind of Ghostbuster?
I saw:
Ghost squid!
Keyboard!
Wait that's not a ghost squid, that's a face!
Ghost Shark!!!
Sick in Tired: Oh yeah..didn't think of the glass plate camera. Silly me. I have one stored in the shed outside.
@Katie
I totally agree, I thought i was the only photography nerd who noticed the sprocket holes.
I indeed think that this was taken in a Holga...and the sprocket exposure is due to putting a 35mm roll of film in a camera meant for a larger film size called medium format/120mm film. I work in a camera shop and have seen this before. The type of print is most likely a contact/proof sheet of the negative. I think this was intentional. It's a cool shot! I applaud those who still use the artistic purity of film to showcase their artistic skills without having to rely on a software program.
For those who can't see the face, make the picture small. Save it and look at it in thumbnail form or go into a photo program and zoom out.
At first I thought that the keys of the keyboard were steps in a flight of stairs...it took me a moment to get my head around what I was really seeing.
I agree though, this is a really beautiful picture, whether intentional or not.
@ mer-sea
Ahhh, that does make sense. I have been using 35mm film for so long that I had momentarily forgotten that other formats are even used. I believe your hypothesis is indeed correct, though we obviously will never know for sure.
I saw the face first, but didn't figure out what was behind until I read the comments.
I really like that photo. We did this on purpose in a photography class I took by taking a roll of pictures on 35mm, and then re-running the same roll of film back through the camera and taking a new set of pictures. It could have easily been on purpose, considering the artsy/eerie nature of the photograph.
The shadow on the face of the woman looks like a third face in profile.
that person has a very fuzzy forehead.
I'll say that the picture was definitely created intentionally, but WHY? What's the point? what was the artist's vision and or the message s/he was trying to convey?
hmmm...
nonsense - looks like someone did an art photo and then sent it in as "found" item to see their stuff on line...
this is beautiful.
just a fogged image.
when you develop in a dark you you can sandwich negatives. its fairly simple to do and results in eerie images such as this one.
This image had to have been done intentionally because both the negative of the face and the one of the piano had to be exposed onto the paper at the same time. Notice the white of the face by the eye and how the keys don't show through. And at the same time the woman's earring and shirt show through the sprocket holes. This couldn't have been done if either image was exposed before the other, because anything black would show through.