The images are breathtaking: black-and-white urban scenes with all the organic drama and character that only low-tech photography methods can produce. Would you believe that these beautiful photos were taken from inside the grimiest, least glamorous objects that lurk in alleys and on street corners? The ‘Trashcam Project’ transforms dumpsters into traveling pinhole cameras that roll around the city of Hamburg.

Photographers Christoph Blaschke, Mirko Derpmann, Scholz & Friends Berlin and Matthias Hewing teamed up with the Hamburg sanitation department to alter ordinary dumpsters. Drilling tiny holes into the containers, they taped Ilford photo paper to the back wall of the interior. The length of the exposure is calculated based on the strength of the sun or other ambient lighting present in the scene.

The Trashcam Project has produced a rather haunting series of photographs of the city of Hamburg. The images have the typical vignetting, slight light leaks and other imperfections that often come with this photography technique. The single small hole drilled into the dumpster projects an inverted image of the scene outside on the opposite side of the container. The smaller the hole, the sharper the image produced.

As opposed to high-tech photographic innovations, pinhole photography is all about simplicity and unpredictable results. Among the first forms of photography to emerge in the 19th century, it’s based on a concept that has been around since the 5th century BCE. The first lens was added around 1600 CE, and it wasn’t until 1850 when pinhole devices were first used to take photos rather than simply displaying an inverted image inside a box or a room.

See the whole series at the Trashcam Project’s Flickr.

Sometimes it happens by mistake: you forget to wind the film forward on an analog camera, and capture a new image on top of a previous one. These happy accidents can often have a ghostly, mysterious feel to them, leading some photographers to intentionally create double or triple exposures for the artistic effects. These 33 examples of multiple-exposure photography recall the unpredictable qualities of film, when each image was an experiment and gazing at the developed results was like opening a present.

Florian Imgrund

(images via: inthoughts.de)

German photographer Florian Imgrund just started using an analog camera in summer 2010, but his mastery of subtle and evocative double-exposure effects seem to imply decades of experience. Imgrund combines portraits of people with nature scenes for contemplative imagery.

Cameron Russell

(images via: cameron russell)

Photographer Cameron Russell uses no computer trickery to achieve these otherworldly images with a vintage feel. With a lomo camera, which has a cheap plastic body and lens that causes unusual, uncontrollable camera effects like vignetting and light leaks, Russell achieves these very interesting results.

Vivek Jena

(images via: vivek jena)

This double exposure by Vivek Jena, entitled ‘Saturday Sun’, seems like an image out of a dream. With a landscape, a frosted window and what appears to be a group of children playing, it’s hard to determine exactly what is going on here.

Maxim Trudolubov

(images via: max_trudo)

Layered shots of buildings and trees in Moscow come together into an almost monochromatic image in this unedited, multiple-exposure, cross-processed shot by photographer Maxim Trudolubov.

Oliver Morris

(images via: lullabies to paralyze)

Photographer Oliver Morris certainly has an eye for lining up multiple shots just right, for images in which his subjects – typically women – seem to blend into or grow out of nature itself.

Dan Mountford

(images vía: dan mountford)

British photography student Dan Mountford has attracted quite a bit of well-deserved attention for stunning in-camera double exposures so expertly executed, some viewers can hardly believe that they’re not Photoshopped.

Andy Bettles

(images via: feature shoot)

Working primarily in still-life photography for companies like Sephora and the New York Times Style Magazine, Andy Bettles also finds the time for beautiful double-exposure photographs like these.

Andrew de Freitas

(images via: andrew de freitas)

Cityscapes and portraits combine into atmospheric works of art in these double-exposure images by photographer Andrew de Freitas.

Fontas Nicolas

(images via: f-nikko.com)

Most photographers working with multiple exposures tend to focus on portraits for the biggest impact, but Fontas Nicolas proves with these images that urban scenery can be just as intriguing.

Julie Wang

(images via: my modern met)

Despite her age – she’s a teenager – Julie Wang creates multiple-exposure images that have caught international attention. Wang often shoots self-portraits and works with quotes and typography as well.

Charles Bergquist

(images via: charles bergquist)

The ‘Double Vision’ series by photographer Charles Bergquist uses multiple exposures to combine disparate images into striking works of art.

Pakayla Biehn

(images via: you should take care)

These aren’t just beautiful examples of double-exposure photography – they’re actually paintings. Artist Pakayla Biehn was born with strabismus, an eye condition that gave her double-vision until it was corrected. Drawing inspiration from that time, Biehn merges images from various photographers and then projects the double-image onto a blank canvas to paint it.