Simpler Times

These images are part of a larger, ongoing series exploring instances of found and imposed symmetry.

Saya’s Sink is an example of several staged photographs which double as portraits. By choosing pairs of personal items from the subject’s homes, a representation of their personality emerges within the convention of symmetrical placement.

A strange effect is created with Holly’s Boats. This image was made looking down off of a friend’s deck, where two toy boats had fallen on the top of a trimmed hedge. Beyond the hard edge of the hedge, a lawn is visible. Although this grassy area is at least 10 feet lower than the hedge, the camera’s lens flattens this depth, imparting a pleasantly confusing spacial relationship between the bush and the lawn.

Other images which play with how photography flattens out spaces are Thank You For Shopping Here and Tires. In Thank You For Shopping Here the corner of a gas station recedes back at the right of the image. This perspective is confused by cropping out the top edge of the gas station, leaving just the red trim visible. This band of solid red becomes abstracted, flattening out and seeming to flare out unnaturally at the upper right corner in a shape which echoes the sidewalk below. In Tires almost everything is parallel to the focal plane, with the shed wall, the stacks of tires, the reflections in the window panes, and even the signage serving to reference that flatness. Only the shadow from the shed’s cropped roof hints at a fuller three-dimensionality.

In general, this series is a departure from my usual approach to photography. It’s fairly documentary, in that it is chronicling a sort of involuntary tic of mine. When left to my own devices I start counting symmetrical objects. Maybe you do it too? I am obsessed with games and this show presents my favorite alone-time game.

Nature is already symmetrical, and buildings are intentionally constructed with a mirror harmony, but these quickly give way to a rough symmetry - when there is an underlying but imperfect structure. Garage Doors is a good example of a casually imperfect symmetry - while the geometry of the structure is perfectly symmetrical, the way the doors were used is not; one side has worn more, a subtle visual intervention.

Green House Gray House is another example of how architecture’s perfect symmetry is augmented by its occupants. In this case, both houses are structurally identical, but each chose different features - the eaves, the specific type of white screen door, the style of window framing, and so on, further emphasized by vastly different choices of landscaping.

So you can think of this as a game if you like - spot the similarities. Let it carry out beyond the show. Get obsessive if you want. How are people standing in the gallery? Any similar postures? Any pairs? How about the lighting? What if you pictured the space from above? How would things balance out that way? What about the cars parked outside? The shoes in your closet? The freckles on your face? And on and on.