35 Surreal Examples of Multiplicity Photography
- By Bhanu Ahluwalia
- Posted in Photography
- 91 comments
Multiplicity is a photography technique in which the same person is photographed from different angles and directions and then the bunch of photographs are digitally re-mastered in Photoshop showing clones of the person doing different things all in one photo.
Today we present 35 Surreal Examples of Multiplicity Photography to inspire you. Photography and Photoshop go hand in hand. Multiplicity Photography is the real test of your patience as you may have to work for hours to get the right shots mainly because of different angles, props and clothes used in pre-production. And finally when you have the images, you have to work on different techniques (blending, layering, curving etc) in Photoshop to paste all the images in one single photo. Enjoy.
Surreal Examples of Multiplicity Photography
what you don’t know can indeed hurt you
We hate it when our friends become successful
Cleo and her 21 brothers & sisters
Multiplicity – Meanies x2, Victim x1
Dental Multiplicity – Self Portrait
365 Days – Day 71 – Hippy Tree Huggers
Multiplicity in Redwood Forest
Violence at Work (Multiplicity)
About the Author
Bhanu Ahluwalia is a graduate in Computer Science and a social media enthusiast from India. He specializes in web design by qualification and photography by passion. He is an avid blogger, running TutZone and co-authoring DesignUnder and SloDive. You can reach him via Twitter.




































Deepak Kaletha, 27 May 2010
Great collection
Jayakumar, 28 May 2010
Great
super
Not at all possible to live with out any commend for this !!!!
whoaugh ………..
Drew, 27 May 2010
Wonderful, how much fun is this!
Camera, Photoshop, fun!
The MoonKeeper, 27 May 2010
Some really good pieces! Now I want to go straight to Curry’s and buy that damn Nikon D90 DSLR camera to make some wicked Photos!
Adi, 31 May 2010
D90??? No way man, is a piece of crap! Go for D300!
brian, 04 June 2010
you are aware that the d90 and d300 have literally the same exact image resolution, megapixels, sensor size, etc..right??
Ernesto, 06 June 2010
I would recommend a lot the sony alpha 600 guys, but it’s only a suggestion.
Jeff, 30 October 2010
D90 and D300 are very very different. Similar sensor, not the same. D300 has great autofocus, D90 autofocus is very frustrating. D300 has full magnesium body, stronger shutter. Shoots more FPS. Doesn’t look like a toy, etc. Huge differences.
rob, 01 July 2010
D90 rocks. It feels solid.
Angelo, 12 July 2010
Very true
esranull, 27 May 2010
very fun thanks a lot
Jordan Walker, 27 May 2010
Schizophrenic.
BC, 27 May 2010
Nice !!!
We’ve made a video with this type of operation :
http://www.vimeo.com/10690396
Pablo Vargas, 27 May 2010
I did my picture too
Laira, 27 May 2010
Quite good photography.good technique… Impressive…
waikit, 27 May 2010
That bboy picture is actually of me!
Jay Philips, 27 May 2010
Nice collection. I especially like “Cleo and her 21 brothers & sisters”
Scott Corgan, 27 May 2010
Oh, I remember that movie, with Michael Keaton! This list of photos is ALMOST as good as that movie! Great! :)
Gilles, 27 May 2010
Martin Liebscher is a great photograph in this type
m-liebscher.de/familie.htm
Markus Danek, 27 May 2010
Great collection, love it!
Lukas, 28 May 2010
Wicked! I am so going to try this :) Thank you!
Kris, 28 May 2010
another one :)
http://www.jasiak.org/montaz/escher.jpg
Mac, 28 May 2010
Check out mine:)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mac-xime/sets/72157622444816067/
Jonathan, 28 May 2010
another one:
http://imgur.com/PuSwH.jpg
Billy, 28 May 2010
i have one to submit to rival the collection!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/billyquach/4585270189/sizes/l/
i love noupe by the way.
kris, 28 May 2010
Awesome post!!
I want to do something similar with photos for my band and this has provided me with some serious inspiration!
Andreas, 28 May 2010
Great collection! Here’s one more :) http://www.flickr.com/photos/agraulich/2465710400/
element321, 28 May 2010
Great collection! I love seeing images of this type.
Elliott Rodgers, 28 May 2010
Amazing! So tempted to have a go myself!
Bryce Wisekal, 28 May 2010
Awesome collection! Shared!
fuzzimo, 29 May 2010
That’s some pretty funny stuff. I’d have to try it someday.
jmleclercq, 29 May 2010
Great collection !
Lee Gustin, 30 May 2010
Great Multiplicity photos!! I have always wanted to try one of these, and maybe now I will that I’ve seen these great inspirational ones.
Greg, 30 May 2010
If you want to see some cool multiplicity photos check out Cameron Jinks, these photos where taken over 3 years where he gained weight, lost weight and changed his facial appearance.
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/yourgallery/artist_profile/Cameron+Jinks/42259.html
Sam, 30 May 2010
Its Great
Andre, 30 May 2010
Superb stuff!! I’ve been playing with this idea recently. Working out the shadows is the tricky part.
Great!!
Tom, 31 May 2010
Haha I made some things like this back in highschool a number of years ago! Fun to create!!
Kent Tan, 31 May 2010
Amazing collection! I like the last one – how did they photoshop everything so nicely together?
Joelsk, 01 June 2010
Here’s one i did about a year ago.
http://yonderboy.com/images/30Joels.JPG
Todd S. Jones, 02 June 2010
Great stuff! Going to give this a try.
taher, 05 June 2010
fine & fine
look like & then…………………..
Klassi K, 06 June 2010
This is creativity. Absolutely amazing! Gonna try this.
Eric Rasch, 07 June 2010
These are great examples! I tried one of my own a year or so ago with kids: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rasch/2874001333/in/set-72157607405026393/
Amber, 07 June 2010
The “Violence at Work” reminds me of Fight Club.
Jackey Daswani, 08 June 2010
Great Job with Imagination!
dharma, 09 June 2010
is this suitable for add to the collection?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dharmastyle/3348121738/sizes/l/
Benjamín Wilson, 09 June 2010
The Last Supper: http://www.flickr.com/photos/benjaminwilson/4606146043/sizes/o/in/set-72157623935113125/
Dr. Jones, 10 June 2010
So you shot a base plate image, then individual shots and then photoshopped them in. Big whoop. If the concepts were more interesting, i.e. told some sort of story or had some sort of point, I could look past it. But there is nothing more here than technique, and not a very original or difficult one.
bruce, 14 January 2011
I wrote something similar to yours but evidently I didn’t put it as nicely as you did because they didn’t print it.
Jae Xavier, 10 June 2010
lolool… so many ideas. so awesome.
Fun, 10 June 2010
Superrr! I copied some photos and I will save them :)
Mark moran, 10 June 2010
Check out Irish photographer Rob O’ Connor. His recent work is incredible and features multiplicity
http://www.rocshot.com
Jan, 11 June 2010
Hi all,
you have seen nothing yet.
This guy took panos with himself hundreds of times in it:
http://www.m-liebscher.de/net/pages/familie/bilder/Suntorybig.jpg
More panos like this to be found here:
http://www.m-liebscher.de/net/familie.htm
English language video with a few explanations:
http://www.m-liebscher.de/shows/09creteil01.htm
3500 images, 3 days shooting, 6 months after-processing
Jan
Sarah, 14 June 2010
Great photos and idea!! Thanks for sharing :)
Vino, 14 June 2010
Great collections :) thanks for sharing
gezaborbely, 19 June 2010
this is mine :D
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3568892/snowfunfinal.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/39275491@N00/4193907666/
Sylvia, 20 June 2010
These were unbelievable. Would love to be able to produce such amazing photos, but just have a little point and shoot.
matt, 22 June 2010
I dont usually do a lot of commenting but why not do a slightly shorter list and weed out some of the ones with the really crappy photoshopping jobs. It would keep the list hq, not just having every example one can find.
David J, 23 June 2010
Wow, too many people. And most (all?) aren’t even Chinese.
algdfa, 26 June 2010
Wow, too many people. And most (all?) aren’t even Chinese.
Me, 27 June 2010
Wow.Yeah.Cool.[yeah right this is so not cool]
Wolf, 28 June 2010
Also see these:
http://www.denbompa.be/photography/multiple-me/
http://www.denbompa.be/photography/multiple-me-2/
Faire des économies, 28 June 2010
Wonderful photos!
Tmo, 30 June 2010
Heres another cool one I found
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7906561@N06/4702025398/
Karma, 03 July 2010
The first one, I know her..or OF her should I say because she takes awesome pics! I am a fan of her collection on flickr :) Her name is Rebekkah and she’s from Iceland. Fabulous pics!
Kaleem Akhter, 04 July 2010
nice all is very cool i like everyone.
NEJOFRIK, 07 July 2010
GENIAL
Zahra, 12 July 2010
cool!!! Know of any tutorials on how to do it? :D
parker, 13 July 2010
This is so much easier than you think.
I did this: http://bit.ly/c6debS in less than five minutes.
Third time I had ever used PhotoShop: Beginner.
Tutorial I made for my brother: http://bit.ly/98nSBO
good luck!
leave me a question on the YT page if you want.
John, 26 July 2010
Wow those are indeed surreal. I love the first one very creative idea using the mirror image! I wish I was talented enough to come up with these types of things on my own but now that I’ve seen some of them I might give em a try just to test out my own photography and editing skills.
Stefan SERBIA, 12 August 2010
I have made this one, UP :) …..
Al, 13 August 2010
I am a bedbug and I find this rude.
Joshua Ludd, 18 August 2010
This was already done to death a decade ago.
Tom, 20 August 2010
These are always fun. I did it with my son a while back.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29969681@N04/4524615165/
Ashley, 20 August 2010
Check this one out! http://www.flickr.com/photos/avdzingle/3443541136/in/set-72157606972417156/
Keither Alvord, 07 January 2011
the lighting is perfect in that.
I went through some of the other pictures on your photostream. they’re pretty good.
Nik, 21 September 2010
Oh wow! Those are great. I was able to experiment with some Roller Derby Girls here:
http://nikthavisone.com/images/Roller_Derby_War.jpeg
Kütahya Porselen, 30 September 2010
Ich denke, dies ist eine großartige Nachricht. Eine Sache, die ich am meisten hilfreich finden, ist Nummer fünf. Manchmal, wenn ich schreibe, ich lass den Fluss der Worte und Informationen kommen so sehr, dass ich locker den Zweck. Es ist nur nach der Bearbeitung, wenn ich merke, was ich getan habe. Es ist trotzig eine Menge toller Tipps hier werde ich versuchen, mehr bewusst.
sharmaine bowers, 02 October 2010
Hey ALL of these are wonderful. If anyone out there can answer my next question, I would be so greatful. Is there any possible way that I can do these clones/multiplicities without using photoshop? I would love to do these but CANNOT afford Photoshop at all. Is there a free program that would allow me to do this type of work? I would be greatful for an answer. TY. Sharmaine
Paul T, 02 October 2010
Ok. I’m dizzy now.
Mac-xime, 07 October 2010
18 Clones pix here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mac-xime/sets/72157622444816067/
Craig, 20 October 2010
Hey, these are fantastic :-) they mess with the mind a bit, this is a great collection, Thanks!
too many dogs, not enough barking, 30 October 2010
http://mfischerdesign.com/I/HTML/I/photo/06.png
udana, 10 November 2010
really really good..i want try like this one
hannah, 01 December 2010
Hi. I have written a tutorial for how to create these type of images, http://www.photoshopbuzz.com/362/multiplicity-image-photoshop/
Jeeem, 30 April 2011
Thanks Hannah,
I was hoping somebody would place a “How To” on here. I’ll have to try this.
-Jeeem-
vit, 01 January 2011
amazing shoots! i would try to make it, any tips?
bruce, 14 January 2011
This is the first time that I have seen these types of pictures. Although there are a couple that are at least mildly interesting only one “multiplicity” shows any kind of mental complexity by the photographer. The rest are just adolescent or uninspired and totally undeserving of a second look, and to them I say “take out your trash, it stinks”.
bruce, 14 January 2011
Why did you not print my comment, to honest?
shapewear, 18 January 2011
These are very good, I tried making one myself but they didn’t look as good as those.
Olli, 11 February 2011
I did a similar picture some years ago: http://www.flickr.com/photos/73764225@N00/1284390151/