Flavorwire

Tired of multiple-exposure photography? Once, before it was a trend, it was a brand new technique, a parlor trick for “spirit photography” and an invitation to experimentation. We’ve dug up a few of these early successes and plucked particularly interesting takes by famous photographers. From Man Ray’s kaleidoscopic nudes to a surreal, polymeliac portrait of Jean Cocteau to Lewis Carroll’s strange little daydream — see a few noteworthy double-exposures in our gallery. Did we mention the nudes?

With all the focused intensity of his clean, dramatically-lit portraits of artists, flowers and folded body parts, it’s its own perfect thing, but the visual metaphor in Robert Mapplethorpe’s Hand In Fire (1985) isn’t exactly subtle. Do not attempt at home. You’re risking hockeyness.