Multiple exposure techniques

Dancing flowers

Polina Plotnikova

Polina is a fine-art photographer and tutor based in the south east of England. With a string of RPS and other distinctions, her work explores different styles of still life. You can follow her at @ photoartitude and check out her workshops at tradesecrets. live/#workshops.

MY ‘DANCING Flowers’ series combines two in-camera techniques: multiple exposure and Intentional Camera Movement (ICM). It came from sometimes not being content with creating simple botanical illustrations and wanting to make images that are more expressive. Inspired by a friend of mine who’s an amazing dance photographer, I saw how she used slow shutter speeds to create ghost-like shadows of her subjects, capturing the movement and motion as a flowing blur. Wanting to apply this technique to my flower models, but with them refusing to dance, the only logical solution I could find was dancing myself while I held the camera!

I’m often asked whether I make these images in camera, or in post processing. It’s very much the former. I enjoy spending time with my camera more than I do with my computer, but equally there are results that I find I can only get in camera. I keep the image I’ve imagined in my mind while taking a few test shots to see how much or what direction of movement fits what I want to create, swinging the camera vertically, horizontally, twisting or waving it. Each works differently with particular