Manipulated Photography: The Artful Illusions of Lewis Reed
Long before modern editing tools existed, Lewis Reed was already experimenting with ways to reshape a photograph. He layered exposures to place the same person in two places at once, coaxed ghostly figures to appear in broad daylight, sketched new landscapes directly onto his negatives, and teamed up with his daughter Mary Jane to bring soft color to black-and-white scenes.
His collection of manipulated photographs showcases his extraordinary creativity and versatility, employing methods such as hand-tinting, double exposure, applied handwork, and surreal ghost-like effects.
This special spotlight explores the imaginative world of Lewis Reed’s manipulated photography, a body of work that reveals his curiosity, sense of humor, and remarkable skill with the photographic tools of the early 1900s.
The Art of Double Exposure: Two Worlds on One Plate
Lewis Reed and the same two ladies with bundles of flowers appear in this photo twice: standing on a bridge over Seneca Creek at Black Rock Mill, and again on the left at the foot of the bridge. The photo was taken in 1905.
Among his most striking techniques was double exposure. With precision and careful planning, Reed could layer two images onto a single glass plate.
A favorite example is a photograph where the same person appears twice in the same scene–once on a bridge, and again at the foot of it. The slight vertical seam where the exposures meet is still visible today, a reminder of the handmade magic behind the picture.
Without the benefit of modern editing tools, Reed achieved what we would now call a “clone effect”–over a century before Photoshop.
Ghosts in the Frame: Early Special Effects
Surrealistic, ghost-like effect of Lewis Reed (right) standing next to a tree in the middle of train track.
Reed also created what he called “ghost photographs.” To produce them, he pre-exposed a faint figure onto a glass plate and then photographed a second subject over it. The result: an incompletely exposed ghostly image as well as a ‘sitter’ looking perfectly unaware.
Hand-Drawn Fantasies: Adding Scenery by Pencil
Lewis Reed himself drew on the glass negative, using a hard graphite pencil, to create the illusion of a couple gazing out on a mountain range, which was not part of the original photograph.
One of Lewis Reed’s most artistic manipulations involved hand-drawn backgrounds. He sometimes sketched new landscapes directly onto the negative–mountains, cliffs, or textured skies–before printing the final photograph. The finished piece blends photography and illustration in a way that feels surprisingly modern, reminiscent of today’s mixed-media art.
A Collaboration in Color: Hand-Tinting by Mary Jane Reed
Amanda Reed after hand-tinting by Mary Jane (Reed) Gartner. Pastel was apparently a good choice for coloration.
Color film did not exist in the early 1900s, but Reed’s daughter, Mary Jane Reed, added life to his images with delicate watercolor hand-tinting. She brushed pale blues into skies, warm tones into skin, and soft greens into landscapes, giving Reed’s photographs an entirely new dimension. This father-daughter collaboration bridges technical skill and artistic intuition, two generations creating together.
Lewis Reed’s masterful use of hand-tinting, double exposure, and detailed handwork reveals not only his artistic creativity but also his technical skill in an era long before digital editing tools. These techniques allowed him to transform ordinary photographs into captivating visual stories full of playfulness and surreal charm. His work stands as a testament to the time, patience, and imagination required to manipulate photos by hand. For those intrigued by Lewis Reed’s fascinating photo manipulations and the art of early 20th-century photographic editing, the full series is available for exploration on this blog under the “manipulated photography” category.
For more on manipulated photography, visit the series: https://reedbrothersdodgehistory.com/category/manipulated-photography/.
Inventing the Scene: Lewis Reed’s Composite Experiment
Not everything in the Reed Collection is what it seems. This early composite by Lewis Reed shows how he experimented with illusion long before Photoshop.
This unusual photograph offers a rare glimpse into the experimental side of early 20th-century photography. Created by Lewis Reed at a time when cameras relied on glass plate negatives and hand-mixed chemicals, the image reflects a period when photographers were not only documentarians, but also inventors; pushing the boundaries of what the medium could achieve.
At first glance, the scene appears to show a peaceful gathering along a wooded stream. Yet the composition quickly reveals signs of careful manipulation. The curved form across the top of the image, resembling the back of a chair or decorative arch, does not belong to the natural landscape. Its texture and sharp edge cut through the sky and treetops, suggesting it was introduced from a separate negative.
The figures also feel slightly detached from their surroundings. Their contrast is stronger, their edges more defined, and the lighting on each does not quite match. Most intriguingly, the woman seated on the ground appears to be the same woman standing between the two men. This repetition is a clear sign that Reed reused the same subject in different positions, further revealing the layered nature of the image and his playful approach to composition.
Such composite images were created through a painstaking darkroom process. Photographers used masking techniques, layered glass plate negatives, and contact printing to merge multiple exposures into a single print. These “trick photographs,” as they were often called, were popular between the late 1890s and the 1920s and were meant to entertain, surprise, and demonstrate technical skill.
This photograph stands as evidence of Lewis Reed’s curiosity and craftsmanship. While he is best known for documenting everyday life and early automotive history, this image reveals another side of his work–one rooted in imagination, experimentation, and the early artistry of the photographic medium.
A Look Back at the Forgotten Art of Hand-Tinted Photography
The hand-tinted photos of Lewis Reed and his daughter, Mary Jane, are examples of the photographic process that most of the people reading this will have never experienced: hand-tinting.
The golden age of hand-colored photography occurred between 1900 and 1940. Before the days of true color photography, these views were immensely popular. While hand coloring doesn’t help you identify or date an image, it does enhance a photograph’s appearance and add to its history.
Before the advent of color photography, photographers painstakingly applied color to black and white photos in order to show a truer visual depiction of a photo image. All of the photographs featured here were taken by Lewis Reed in the early 1900s and were hand-tinted by his daughter, Mary Jane, likely in the late 1930s to 1940. She colored the photos with special photographic watercolor and a paintbrush. Rather than coloring the entire image—a time-consuming task—she carefully selected details that would make the image lively and attractive. The fact that these photos, all of which are over 100 years old, are still in relatively good condition is a strong testament to the lasting power of hand-tinted photographs.
Do you recognize the road pictured below? Few modern residents of Montgomery County would guess, but this is a shot down Veirs Mill Road in the early 1900s. Mary Jane Reed added some depth to the image with subtle earth tones, in the colorized version.
Veirs Mill Road looking east before it was paved. Original photograph by Lewis Reed, 1911.
Colorized version of the photograph above by Lewis Reed. The photo was hand-tinted by Mary Jane (Reed) Gartner, making it look like a color photo.
Below, Lewis Reed’s c. 1909 photograph of his little cousin, Amanda Reed, sitting amongst the hydrangeas — the original before, and the colorized version after.
Amanda Reed before hand-tinting. Original photograph by Lewis Reed.
Amanda Reed after hand-tinting by Mary Jane (Reed) Gartner. Pastel was apparently a good choice for coloration.
To a visual artist like a dedicated photographer, the inability of the black-and-white camera to capture the richness of colorful blooms or the vibrancy of a summer scene must have been endlessly frustrating.
Lewis Reed’s daughter Mary Jane seemed particularly fond of hand-tinting photographs of flowers — it must have given her a lot of pleasure to “restore” color to her father’s beautifully composed shots. View some more of her work below.
Roses before hand-coloring. Original photograph by Lewis Reed.
Roses after hand-coloring
Hand-colored flowers
Below are two different versions of tinting a similar image. In Version 2, some of the flowers at the top were removed from the vase (by Lewis Reed, before taking a second shot) for a different aesthetic effect. The color artist used bolder colors to enhance that effect.
Original arrangement before hand-tinting. Original photograph by Lewis Reed.
Version 1: Arrangement after hand-tinting by Mary Jane (Reed) Gartner
Version 2: Arrangement after hand-tinting by Mary Jane (Reed) Gartner
This is a hand-tinted version of Rock Creek taken by Lewis Reed in the early 1920s.
Other examples of hand-tinting are included in the following collection of Lewis Reed’s Black Rock Mill photographs. Black Rock Mill was built by Thomas Hillary and has stood along the banks of Great Seneca Creek as a landmark since its construction in 1815-1816. The mill was in working operation for over a hundred years until a flood in 1920 destroyed a dam on Seneca Creek and damaged the mill. Today, it a unique survivor of the many mills in Montgomery County harnessing the water-power of the creeks to grind wheat and corn into flour. It is one of only two mills standing in Montgomery County Maryland.
Black Rock Mill bridge hand-tinted by Lewis Reed’s daughter, Mary Jane.
Bridge over Seneca Creek. Photo by Lewis Reed and hand-tinted by his daughter, Mary Jane
Strolling down a lane on a beautiful summer’s day. Black Rock Mill hand-tinted photo
Black Rock Mill hand-tinted photo
The art of hand-tinted photos was introduced along side the daguerreotype in 1839. In the 19th century it was most common for the professional photographer to tint the photograph or tintype just after printing. Later photo artists introduced new techniques using oil, watercolor and other types of paint to achieve the desired result. With the Great Depression, the sale of professional hand-tinted photographs declined, but the home artist continued to have access to hand-tinting kits. Today, we can look back and appreciate the time and creativity it took to edit these photos without Photoshop.
Find photos like these and much more on Montgomery History’s online exhibit, “Montgomery County 1900-1930: Through the Lens of Lewis Reed“.
Before There Was Photoshop, There Was Lewis Reed…
If you take a look at the state of photography today, such as the advances of digital cameras and the artful image manipulation by Photoshop, it is easy to forget that back in the 1900s photographers couldn’t just go into a computer program and change their images any way they wanted. They did what they could with the tools they had. Double image exposure was one tool Lewis Reed had in his photography tool belt. He was doing crazy things to images and creating humorous effects over 100 years ago. With double exposure technique, you could create certain effects like placing the same person on both sides of a picture simultaneously. Photographs were pieced together in the darkroom from separate photographs.
Spotting these manipulated photos in Lewis Reed’s extensive collection has been both easy and difficult. It wasn’t until I viewed the high resolution scan that the modification jumped out at me. The photograph below taken at Black Rock Mill, highlights Lewis Reed’s photo manipulation. (click image to enlarge)
This is a double exposure photograph of Lewis Reed and the same two ladies with bundles of flowers appearing twice – standing on a bridge over Seneca Creek at Black Rock Mill – and on the left at the foot of the bridge. Photo by Lewis Reed, ca. 1905
With double-exposure technique, Lewis Reed learned how to make a subject appear twice in a frame, as if they had an identical twin. To capture these images, he would snap a picture of the subject in one position. Then, he would have to move into another pose before the following photo was shot. Rotating lens caps and special glass plates (the precursor to film) were also part of the process. The final image was then pieced together and developed in the darkroom from the separate photographs. The result was a playful and surreal approach to early photographs.
Double exposure technique often left a telltale vertical line running down the center of the image that is lighter than the left and right sides — a fuzzy stripe separating the two exposures. This is the area where the two exposures overlapped. The picture is lighter where the images overlap because the exposure value is doubled (causing over-exposure) in that specific vertical area. The left half of the image (standing at the foot of the bridge) ends where the light band becomes dark on the right side. And vice versa for the right half of the image (standing on top of the bridge).
Today we are accustomed to Photoshop and people manipulating images, but back in the early 1900’s photo manipulation was used as a form of whimsy.
New Online Exhibit: Early 20th Century Photo Magic
Montgomery History has launched a new Photo-Magic section of their recent exhibit, “Montgomery County 1900-1930: Through the Lens of Lewis Reed“. Learn about about 20th century photo editing tricks — and find out how the photo above was manipulated. The new exhibit section details how self-taught photographer and pioneering automobile dealer Lewis Reed edited photos before computers existed, using techniques like hand-tinting and double exposure. This exhibit was co-developed by Blog Author, Jeanne Gartner and Montgomery History Librarian & Archivist, Sarah Hedlund.
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Reed Brothers Dodge History (1915-2012) by Jeanne Gartner is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
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