Curated Collection of Hypnotic Double Exposure Portraits

Dearest Yellowtracers, Happy New Year and welcome to the 2017 edition of Yellowtrace. Hooray! It’s time to wave goodbye to our 2016 archives and welcome 2017 with a bang.

I don’t know about you, but I really love this time of year. January always feels like a new slate and a new beginning, a month of promise in which almost anything feels possible. Today’s post celebrates this very idea by bringing together a curation of portraits by artists who have used Double Exposure and/ or other digital techniques in order to create dreamy portraits which capture the essence of endless possibilities. So before we launch into our usual hard-core design content, let’s take a moment to project our dreams and set our intentions for 2017.

Here’s to another brilliant year together.

Love always,
Mama Yellowtrace x

Antonio Mora // Spanish artist Antonio Mora describes his work as making ‘cocktails’. Mora mixes images found on blogs, databases, and magazines, which he seamlessly fuses together to create alternate realities. A cloud melting into a young man’s brain, or a baroque interior becoming a part of a woman’s face are all in a day’s work, with his hypnotic portraits appearing as though they’ve stepped straight out of our deepest dreams.

Alison Scarpulla // New York-born, Cleveland-based Alison Scarpulla is a young photographer who has been shooting film for the past 10 year. The 26-year-old also happens to have some of the dreamiest double exposures I’ve seen. If you’re so inclined, you can purchase one of her prints here.

Alessio Albi // Alessio Albi is a young Italian photographer who has a passion for expressing himself through incredibly atmospheric portraits of women. I am particularly enamoured with his double exposure portraits of his father and himself shown above.

Pierre Debusschere // Belgian director, photographer and curator Pierre Debusschere is a bit of a God – just quietly. He launched his career at Dazed & Confused, followed by working for Vogue Hommes Japan and Dior Homme, amongst others. Most recently Debusschere directed two music videos for Beyoncé (like, hello! famous much?) as well as creating a full range of campaign images (and a film inspired by the seven deadly sins) for the 2014-15 season of the National Opera of Belgium. Debusschere… So hot right now.

Matt Wisniewski // Matt Wisniewski is a 26-year-old American artist and software engineer. Raised in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, he attended Rochester Institute of Technology, where he studied computer science. In parallel to being a tech geek, Matt has been experimenting with various artistic media, creating hypnotic fashion and nature mash-up collages that bring dreams into reality.

Temporary Tree by Mkgk and Raw Color for MU and Make a Forest // “Trees are often regarded as objects and are ruthlessly removed according to the landscape plan. In the Netherlands, trees typically reach only one tenth of their potential age.” For Raw Color and studio Maarten Kolk & Guus Kusters trees are anything but static. They are ever changing life forms that determine how we experience light, shade, wind and changes of the seasons. Their observation was translated into illusions of trees using different materials, representing life, dynamics and transformation of trees. Temporary Trees was a project which took place during Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven in 2011 as part of Make a Forest, an international platform, founded by Joanna van der Zanden and Anne van der Zwaag.

Miki Takahashi // Miki Takahashi is a motion designer and video editor based in Tokyo who uses a combination of digital manipulation and double exposure photography to creates tension between two portrayed realities. Landscape and portrait merge smoothly into one another to produce a gentle melancholy. The images are full of emotional depth and profound aesthetic sensitivity, at the same time portraying a sense of intrigue and mystery.

City Silhouettes by Jasper James // Jasper James is a China based photographer working in Shanghai and Beijing. Although editorial and corporate projects are a big part of his professional work, his broader interests also include travel photography, portraiture and concept-driven projects. These three areas come together beautifully in his personal series titled ‘City Silhouettes’, which uses multiple exposures to combine portraits with incredible birds-eye views of the city.

Christoffer Relander // Christoffer Relander was born in Finland in 1986 and grew up in the countryside of Ekenäs. His interest in art started at an early age, but it was not until he served at the Finnish Marines between 2008-2009 that he fell in love with photography. As an experimental fine art photographer, Relander applies an in-camera technique inspired by multiple exposure to create a series of surreal images based on the ambiguous relationship between man and nature.

Andrea Costantini // Andrea Costantini is an Italian-born, USA-based Illustrator, Photographer, Graphic Designer and Editor who’s greatest influences comes from Surrealism. Costantini likes taking pictures of people’s faces and modifying them by adding additional images. “I build the images like a montage by mixing architecture, objects, animals, to create imaginary and dreamlike worlds.” Another source of his inspiration is the majesty of architecture: Costantini is fascinated by “what the man has managed to build around him over the centuries”, something that’s also evident through work.

Aneta Ivanova // Aneta Ivanova is a 24-year-old self-taught photographer from Varna, Bulgaria who’s been fascinated with art since her childhood. Her first interests included shooting experimental self-portraiture in her home, followed by the discovery of fine art and fashion photography. “I always try to keep my work as personal as possible, shooting self-portraits or portraits of my sisters mostly, as I feel that nobody else could better recreate what’s in my mind. I believe that an artwork should not be explained, that it should be asking questions rather than giving answers. For me art is something that’s happening inside the person who’s creating or viewing – it’s not a product or an object, it’s an experience.”

Florian Imgrund // German photographer Florian Imgrund is fascinated with the unique charm of analog photographs connected with the original handcraft of photography. After acquiring his first analog camera in 2010, Imgrund has developed an impressive portfolio that reflects his true passion. All of his double exposure work is done completely in camera – captured on film and self-developed – without the use of photoshop or any other computer manipulation.

‘Failure and Regret are reserved for those who are afraid to reach with their heart.’

‘To find truth, sometimes you have to reach into the darkness.’

‘In order to follow your heart, you must first find your mind.’

‘Lost time is never found again.’

Wisdom for my Children by Brandon Kidwell // Brandon Kidwell is a self-taught photographer from Florida. His double exposure series ‘Wisdom for my Children’ was created with his iPhone and post-processed using photo apps. The series is inspired by being a father, portraying life lessons and wisdom inspired by issues that came about in his children’s lives, with some of the piece of advice he gave. “I hope that these portraits and the messages they contain are received and will resonate with my children and the decisions they make.”

“True Detective” Opening Title Sequence // The first-season of HBO’s critically acclaimed series ‘True Detective’ would have to be one of my all time favourite TV shows (have you seen it? SO GOOD!), and it’s opening title sequence was just as impressive. It was created by Patrick Clair, creative director of Elastic, the Los Angeles production design studio who won an Emmy for the first-season title sequence in 2014. I personally haven’t watched the second season (I hear it wasn’t nearly as good as the first – bummer!) but given we are taking all things double exposure, I thought it was worth including it here. Good times.

[Photography credits as noted.]