(1) To photograph the entire picture in two separate halves on the plate, moving the sitter from one position to another for each exposure.

(2) To employ a background as dark and dim as practicable, whilst well-lighting the sitter and furniture, and giving a separate exposure for each position of the model. The latter procedure is by far the simpler, and provided reasonably correct exposures are given, success should not be very elusive.

To take for a concrete example the portrait of a boy playing checkers with himself. Hang up a curtain of black or deep-red material in some dark recess of a room, and a few feet before it stand a small bamboo table with checker-board, &c., complete, at which the person to be photographed may be posed sitting. As mentioned above, all available light must be concentrated on the group, whilst if the model be wearing light clothes, the effect will be enhanced accordingly.

As to the camera, this may with greatest advantage be of the focussing type, or at any rate a box instrument fitted with magnifiers, so that by being placed near to the sitter the latter may be rendered large and sharp in the portrait whilst the background remains indistinct. This should be of such a size that its somber image well covers the whole plate. A suggested arrangement for the tableau is sketched in [Fig. 9].

The first exposure may be made with the person seated at 1—the left-hand side of the table—he either resting one finger on a checker as if about to make his move, or adopting such other pose as his acting capabilities may suggest.

Primarily the time of exposure should be just sufficient for the light-clothed sitter, and therefore not enough for the table and background, which receive a second exposure. This should be made when the model has taken his chair to the opposite side of the table, and again assumed a position natural to the player, who anxiously watches his opponent’s play.

Fig. 9.—One person in two places.

A.Table.
B.Black or red curtain as background.
C.Fireplace.
D.White sheet as reflector.
E.Camera.
1 and 2.Positions of sitter in first and second exposures.

All possible care must, of course, be taken to keep the table undisturbed during the model’s movements, and also to insure that no lighter object than the sitter himself has a place in either exposure just where he appears in the other. For example, a pile of books must not be photographed during the first exposure just behind or in front of the position which the model is to occupy during the second exposure; otherwise the vision of books through the person’s transparent chest, or a similar incongruous phenomenon, will result.