Photographing Like Pep Ventosa

Sunday 30 January 2022, 15:15 by Laura van der Burgt | 10,482 views | 4 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

Your photo archive is a valuable asset in several ways. For example, as a source of inspiration for new images or techniques. I scanned my archive from the past year for images I found interesting enough to look at for longer.

To my surprise, it was not so much a particular image that emerged, but rather a particular technique. Namely, the technique of multiple exposures. A technique that invites further exploration!

As it happens, my photography club presented a new quarterly assignment. You may have guessed what it was about, exactly! ... multiple exposures. Great!

To challenge us even further, it involved a special method of exposure, namely the Pep Ventosa technique. Perhaps you have heard of it before?

Pep Ventosa

Pep Ventosa is a photographer and artist originally from Spain, whose photographs are praised for the way they are created. He turns in circles around his subject and takes a photo at every step.

He combines all these photos into one image, resulting in a highly painterly representation of the subject in which the (busy) background has become unrecognisably blurred. The series 'In the round - Trees' is perhaps his best-known project.

The technique

The Pep Ventosa technique involves taking lots of images and processing them in an editing programme by laying them over one another and 'mixing' them.

Like a kind of photographic DJ, he places layers of similar photos on top of one another and mixes them into an abstract and surreal work of art that looks as though it has been painted.

Whether you like this art or not, it does offer a different view of an existing subject, a different perspective for your photography. In any case, it is an idea worth trying out on the ordinary things around us.

Experimenting

If your camera is suitable for laying multiple images over one another, you can start experimenting with this 'circle' method fairly quickly and easily.

For example, start by photographing six or more images over one another. Some cameras can lay as many as nine or ten images over one another. Check the manual to see whether your camera has this option too.

You do not necessarily have to go outside to experiment. There are fun challenges to be found at home too. Think of a still life à la Ventosa.

By trying things out, you learn what does and does not work with this method. As a result, you will naturally start looking for perhaps better conditions.

Start small. It is about trying and experiencing. Do not give up if it does not work straight away. Especially at the beginning, I would set the camera to jpg (not raw) and save only the result. Once you become more experienced, you can change the settings as you wish. Anything goes, nothing is wrong.

If your camera does not have this function, you will have to save all the images and stack and blend them in a photo editing programme. Instructions for this can be found online.

Variations on the theme

Instead of turning around a subject, you can also turn the subject itself around. For example, your camera is on a tripod and takes a photo after every turn.

That is how I got started with a rose on a vase, turning it slightly around its axis each time. It is important to make sure that you keep the stem in the same place.

Because the background does not change in this case, I held a piece of white card behind it. Instead of a rose, you can of course choose another subject.

I put a hydrangea from the garden in a vase and photographed it as a still life à la Ventosa. I walked around the bouquet with an 85mm lens and made six exposures. I enlarged a detail from this and added a linen texture in Photoshop. This makes the whole image a little more atmospheric.

Hopefully, you have found some new inspiration. I am very curious whether this appeals to you and what your experiences are. I wish you lots of photographic fun!

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