Portraits de criminels australiens dans les années 1920

[zsas]

I'd assume some type of masking device over the lens.

That sounds reasonable. Has anyone ever seen some kind of rotating back negative holder that has masks? Could the photographers have done these vignettes on the same neg using a negative holder that had some kind of masking ability? As I think about it sounds pretty complex and I bet as you suggest, the photographer(s) were just taping cardboard with the masks cut out to get multiple non overlapping exposures per one negative

[Klainmeister]

Well, i suppose if you had a 4x5 holder that a darkslide could slide in both sides....that's a possibility.

[EASmithV]

Some of these old mug shots are better than some "Professional art portraitists" I've seen.

[LJH]

That sounds reasonable. Has anyone ever seen some kind of rotating back negative holder that has masks? Could the photographers have done these vignettes on the same neg using a negative holder that had some kind of masking ability? As I think about it sounds pretty complex and I bet as you suggest, the photographer(s) were just taping cardboard with the masks cut out to get multiple non overlapping exposures per one negative

Revolving back would have left one image upside down.

Rotating back would have left one image inverted (i.e. 'round the wrong way/back to front).

I'm going with masking.

[zsas]

^Good theory, sounds most plausible.