Pixiq

Some days I literally wish I had an extra me.

This backup Rebekka (shown above pouring the beer, not the absent-minded one on the right) would be put in charge of housework, answering emails, and worrying about the financial side of running a one-person art business,  so that the real me could  concentrate on creating the actual artwork,  finish putting together the books I've been planning to publish,  drink beer, travel and have more time to spend just hanging with my kids.  That would be pretty sweet.

Alas, being educated in the field of visual art rather than, say, advanced bio engineering, this is fully beyond my capabilities.   The only cloning I've been able to do so far is in my photos.  In fact, I probably owe a large chunk of my popularity online to a series of double selfportraits I made over a period of two years or so, mostly at the beginning of my journey into digital photography. This photo in particular:

started a bit of a trend.  I've seen exact replicas of this photo all over flickr, even a Saudi Arabian version, which I found particularly humorous. (prints available here)
The Flickr community ca 2005-2006 just couldn't get enough of these.  In the end however, I did.  This was perhaps largely due to the fact that a) everybody was doing this and b) Toyota here in Iceland hired me to do a big ad-campaign based on these twin-themed photos.

I still feel this was a bold and risky move by their creative director, as I had just finished my first year of art school, had zero experience in the world of advertising and was terrified.  Somehow I managed to pull it off just by being my usual goofy self.

Anyway, spending an entire summer ('06) shooting almost nothing but clone photos did it for me.  The last one I made was in 2008,  by far the most clever of the bunch,  even if I say so myself:

Regularly, I've been asked to explain how this is done.  To be honest, considering that these clone photos have been so vastly popular, created by so many people, for so many years, (the first experiments were done in the 1800's in a darkroom with multiple negatives) I'm always a little surprised to hear not everyone knows how it's done.  So, pay attention class!  Here's a brief tutorial:

Step one:  Setting things up

You will need:   Any camera that allows you to control settings manually,  a tripod, a remote or cable remote to trigger the camera, and if you're not crazy about modellng yourself,  you'll need a willing subject. 
Once you've decided what scene you're going to create, have set the camera up on the tripod and are satisfied with the frame you've chosen,  take some practice shots to get your camera settings right (iso speed, shutter speed, aperture, etc)  These settings should not be altered in any way during the shooting process, so take some time to get it right before starting.  
It's easiest to do these indoors with controlled lighting, but if you are shooting outdoors, be prepared to work quickly to avoid sudden changes in ambient lighting.  A cloud passing by the sun can screw everything up.

Using the remote or remote cable (to avoid moving the camera even the slightest bit),  take several shots of each "half" of what will be the finished image.  This is to ensure you'll have a usable version of each soon-to-be clone.   If you're doing a selfportrait, I recommend using the timer to allow yourself ample time to get into position or hide the remote.    Changing clothes or hair is optional.  Here I went so far as to color my hair dark between shots, but that's a bit extreme perhaps:

(Ok, i admit the idea to color my hair came first, not the other way around.  But I couldn't resist doing the photo since the opportunity presented itself)

Step Two:  Combining the images

This can be very easy or very hard, depending on how much interaction you want going on between the two clones.    I've never gone too far in the interaction thing, simply because of my limited skills in extreme photoshopping. 
First, let's quickly take a look at the basic technique for combining two images with no interaction between the clones.
If you're shooting in RAW (which I recommend , always),  be sure that when you're opening the files , either in Lightroom or in Photoshop,  that any preliminary alterations to the files are identical on all files you're planning on attempting to combine.  (For example, if you change the white balance,  vignetting, curves or whatever when opening the CR2 file)

Once you have the two images open in PS (identical except for the placement of the subject),  simply copy one (cmd+C) and paste onto the other (cmd+V).  Then simply erase part of the top layer to allow the lower layer to peek through.  That's really all there is to it, if your clones aren't touching or overlapping in any way.
Then once you have both subjects visible, simply flatten the image (shift+cmd+e) and proceed with whatever you'd normally do when processing an image, until you're happy with the outcome:

Trivia:  this particular image was shot in May 2006, using an ND400 filter in bright sunlight, each half a 20 second exposure.   This river no longer exists,  dried up completely a couple of years ago, which I find a bit sad.  Prints available. 

In the previously mentioned phycho-with-knife image,  I complicated things only a tiny bit more,  combining three layers instead of two (in order to have the mirror image looking on in horror at the scene playing out in front of the sink).   Otherwise, it was done exactly the same way.

In this Prius photo where I'm doing some silly faux-kung-fu moves on a bridge in front of the car (a likely scenario if ever there was one)

things got a tiny bit trickier because of the shadow of goofy-jumping-Rebekka falling behind the leg of slightly-more-badass-Rebekka on the left.   Simple cases of small areas like this overlapping are easily solved.   Here I simply selected (using the magnetic lasso tool)  the part of my leg that would be in front of the shadow, and copied that tiny bit into a new third layer on top of the two previous layers.  I then combined the two images in the same way as described above, flattening the image once everything was in place. 

For more tricky scenarios,  you'll need to get creative.  I made an attempt to jump rope with myself once, using a light stand to hold the end of the rope I wasn't holding.  The outcome was pretty stiff, but might give you some idea of what can be done:

For extreme interaction in photos such as this, like wanting a picture of yourself french-kissing yourself,  you'll have to ask someone else.  That's beyond me.  Closest I've come to a me-on-me make-out session is this one here:

Really, that's enough for me, I think.. 

In closing, a brief bit of shameless self promotion:
There's a sale going on in my print store,  with considerable discounts (11%, 22% or 33%, depending on size)  off all selfportraits (in celebration of my 33rd birthday recently).  I've also added a bunch of new prints from all genres (horses, landscapes,birds, selfs) in the past week,  check out the full catalog here.