Double Vision: Layered Reality in 35mm
Decaying ferries meet wildflowers, tower blocks transform into vertical gardens, and the everyday luxury of island life blends with memories of what once was
There's something magical about double exposures on 35mm film. The way memories and moments collapse into each other, creating something new that exists between worlds. These shots from a sailing trip to Gosport capture that liminal space – where past meets present, nature meets structure, and memory meets reality.
Ghosts on the Water
The first image that stands out to me shows the old Hempel chain ferry, now rusting away in Gosport Harbour. Every time I visit Gosport I get a strange feeling seeing it decaying there – I still remember the excitement of using it when I was a child. In its place now sits a newer model that, ironically, doesn't quite work as well as the original. There's something poetic about that.
The double exposure creates a dreamlike quality, with daisies growing alongside the ferry, as if nature is slowly reclaiming this industrial relic. It's like seeing two timelines simultaneously – what was and what is becoming. The flowers seem to be growing through the metal, a beautiful contradiction of delicacy and decay.
Concrete Gardens
Another shot captures a tower block in Gosport marina, overlaid with those same persistent daisies. Some might find these buildings stark or ugly, but I've always been fascinated by them. Each window represents a different life being lived and different stories unfolding side by side.
The double exposure transforms the concrete structure into something ethereal. The flowers that might normally grow at the base of such buildings now appear to bloom from the windows and walls themselves. It challenges our perception of these spaces as cold or unwelcoming.
What draws me to tower blocks is precisely that sense of proximity and mystery. Behind each window is a complete world – meals being cooked, conversations happening, lives unfolding – all stacked neatly beside and above one another. The building becomes a physical manifestation of community, of lives lived in parallel.
The Luxury of the Everyday
Taking these photos made me reflect on how fortunate I am to live on the Isle of Wight, where the sea is an everyday presence rather than a holiday destination. The boats captured in these exposures are both familiar and extraordinary to me – part of my regular landscape but still capable of inspiring awe.
The overlapping images of sailing vessels and concrete structures speak to this duality. What is mundane to some is exotic to others. The sea that tourists travel miles to visit is my daily companion.
There's a slowness to these images that feels right – the unhurried pace of film photography matching the relaxed rhythm of island life. The double exposures weren't planned with precision; they were happy accidents, moments of serendipity captured while sailing with family. Perhaps that's why they feel so dreamy and ethereal, like memories themselves – imperfect, overlapping, beautiful in their unpredictability.
Between Land and Sea
Living on an island creates a particular relationship with the mainland. You're simultaneously connected and separate. These double exposures capture something of that feeling – the blending of worlds, the overlapping of experiences. The chain ferry itself is a perfect symbol: neither fully of the land nor fully of the sea, but the connection between them.
As I look at these images now, I'm struck by how they transform the familiar landscapes of Gosport. Places I've known for years appear different, imbued with new meaning through this photographic technique. The decaying ferry becomes a garden; the tower block becomes a vertical meadow.
Perhaps that's what I love most about film photography, and double exposures in particular. They remind us that reality isn't fixed or singular. Two moments can occupy the same space. Memory and present experience can coexist, just as these images do on a single frame of film.
Like the Isle of Wight itself – separated from the mainland but connected to it – these photographs exist in the in-between, inviting us to see our everyday surroundings with fresh eyes.
