Through the Viewfinder Photography

A commenter on one of my photos on Flickr suggested that I should apply a TTV Layer to this capture of an old mill I took in Salt Lake City. I read the comment and then had to admit that I didn't know what TTV photography was. A quick trip to Google and I discovered that TTV stands for "Through the Viewfinder". Here is a definition found on a Flickr group dedicated to the art:

"Through the Viewfinder photography is defined as taking a picture of any subject through the viewfinder of any camera with another camera."

The technique intrigued me. But since I didn't have the option of re-taking the photo of the mill through an old camera's viewfinder, I sought to re-create the effect in Photoshop. After a bit more searching via Flickr, I found another group - this one dedicated to images that can be used as layers to create this technique.

Once I had the viewfinder image, the rest was fairly simple. I used Photoshop's MOVE tool to drag the viewfinder image onto my original photo. I then adjusted the new viewfinder layer's blending mode to MULTIPLY. This allowed the layer with the mill photo to appear as though it is being seen through the viewfinder layer.

I am not too sure of the usefulness of this type of image, but I do think it adds a nostalgic quality to the photograph.