Todd's Portraits

A high contrast black and white double exposure of my face, one where I'm looking up and to the right, and a second where I'm looking up to the left. The left-looking face is lower in the frame, and somewhat covered by the hair of the right-looking face. It gives the impression that there are two versions of me, one more plainly visible and one slightly hidden.

At an Ink & Switch summit in Barcelona, Todd and I slunk around in the shadows one evening taking a series of double-exposure portraits.

Todd Matthews is one of the people I most dearly cherish in my work life. He is by far the most skillful graphic designer I've ever worked with, and collaborating with him on design projects has helped me build up some muscles that my self-taught ass didn't even know were there. He's also a great photographer, and he always brings a few nice cameras to our gatherings.

For this Barcelona trip, he brought a film camera with the express purpose of shooting double exposures, and he asked if I would be interested in posing for some of these photos, and I leapt at the chance.

The photo at the top is what I'm now using as a profile picture across the web. The fact that it so clearly shows two different-feeling versions of myself is deeply meaningful to me right now, so this was the obvious pick, replacing my previously (and still beloved) pizza face.

Another black and white photo. A figure with long hair that falls loosely down around their shoulders, face half in shadow, looks off to the right. Superimposed over their eyes and mouth are two bright lines, which look almost like masking tape or zippers. The photo has faint liquid stains, revealing that it was shot with film and developed by hand.

Can you see what the second exposure is? It's a bit hard to tell — you can probably flag it as brick, at best. It's a staircase! Now, if you haven't shot a double exposure with a film camera before, what you should know is that you get no preview of how the two images will overlap. The way that Todd so perfectly lined up the bright strips of brick over my eyes and mouth is, in my estimation, a little bit of luck, but also a result of Todd's highly refined sense of composition. Like, he knows how to keep lines horizontal (I'm always dismayed by photos with a crooked horizon). He knows, instinctually, how to perfectly frame a scene or a subject.

What looks like a person with two faces, shot in soft focus. One face is being covered by their hands, the other stares directly into the camera.

These were all shot in the dark with a flash. I don't know how to pull an interesting face. That's okay.

The figure's silhouette is filled with the spiny-edged leaves of some cactus-like plant, which streatch and twist around each other like tendrils. The figure's eyes peer out from the center.

A double with some local foliage. I quite like this one, too. It's funny to me that my posture and hair are almost identical in this shot and the one with the bricks. Todd shot the other exposures earlier during the day, so it was a bit of luck-of-the-draw to see how they all matched up. To me it feels like a miracle.

Here are the vital stats: Nikon FM2n with Nikon 35mm AI-S, Light Orange Filter, Cinestill Double-X at 800 iso, Processed with Cinestill df96 monobath 3min 90°F.

Go spend some time on Todd's website and follow him on bsky.