allison aubry

Artist Statement

I started to experience with double exposure in analog film photography so that I could properly teach it to my students. I have never done this before, but I shot a roll of 36 at an ISO 800 on ISO 400 film, and after I was finished the roll, I loaded it BACK into the camera to shoot another 36 and hoped that my images would overlap in an aesthetically pleasing way. Before loading the first roll of film, I drew on the film in Sharpie to indicate where to reload the film and line it up perfectly, but truly, I was ok with any imperfections. I walked around Philadelphia and started shooting both objects, people, nature, and anything I thought would be interesting. I have my own darkroom in my art classroom, so I developed the photos myself and was pleasantly surprised by how a lot of them turned out. In particular, I liked the abstract images where the viewer has to really stop, look, and think about what two things I overlapped. I have been an art teacher for over 12 years and realized I need to experience more with my own art and photography and it felt special to draw in sharpie on my film and hope for the best and then show my students my work. I use the unpredictable nature of 35mm double exposure to explore the overlapping layers of identity and environment. By exposing the same frame of film twice, I aim to move beyond traditional portraiture and into a realm of surrealism where my subjects are physically entwined with the spaces they inhabit: whether it is the vibrant energy of a classroom or the industrial textures of Fishtown. By layering faces over city signs, metalwork, and shared social spaces, I want the viewer to feel the psychological weight of a location. My goal is to capture the "ghost" of a moment, creating images that feel less like a frozen second in time and more like a lingering memory. I introduced the concept of double exposure to my high school photography class, and we were inspired by the original double exposure images of the Victorian era, where it was aesthetically pleasing to create ghost-like prints.