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How did O.G. Rejlander create The Two Ways of Life from multiple negatives?
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History of photography
Child with Striped Dress (Younger Raab Child), autochrome photograph by Alfred Stieglitz, 1907; in the Art Institute of Chicago.
O.G. Rejlander created his famous 1857 work, The Two Ways of Life, by using a technique known as composite photography.
To achieve this, Rejlander combined more than 30 separate negatives to produce a single final print. By layering these distinct images, he sought to move beyond the limitations of straightforward photography and emulate the painterly effects and complex compositions found in the works of Old Masters, specifically drawing inspiration from the background and arrangement of Raphael’s School of Athens. This method allowed him to construct elaborate, staged scenes in his studio that would have been impossible to capture in a single exposure.1