The Droste Effect

Droste

During lockdown last year I started reading and creating new photographic techniques. One of them was the ‘Droste’ effect. I hope you like the few that I have created here.

What is the Droste effect?

The Droste effect describes a specific type of recursive picture in which a smaller version of the larger image is featured within the larger image. Another term for this surreal photography effect is mise en abyme, which refers to the practice of inserting a replica of an image within itself. This creates a repetition that could continue forever, as the smaller version of the picture would contain an even smaller replica and so on.

Artist & photographer Josh Sommers is an expert on the Droste effect. “A real-world example would be if you held two mirrors up to each other,” he explains. “You’d look into the mirror and see an infinite tunnel of reflections of the two mirrors going back and forth. That’s somewhat of a Droste effect.”

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