you look like someone I know

Photo Essay by Sujay Iyer

Images tend to repeat themselves.

Whether it is the shape, the composition or the emotion, over time some images have the tendency of resembling others in one’s collection. It’s like spotting a friend’s lookalike in a crowd where a gaze, a shrug of the shoulder, a stray tuft of hair, might make you stop and fill you with a sense of familiarity towards the stranger.

These repeating tropes aren’t always intentional, but are more a result of inclinations that develop over time. 

The streets are a largely unpredictable and constantly changing environment. Making images in such an environment relies heavily on what the street has to offer that day accompanied by a generous sprinkle of luck.

This is what fascinates me; to be able to spot repetitions of similar or contrasting tropes in my street photographs.

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editor's note

Volume 09

clay | chlorophyll | crimson

Grass is green where you water it. LC’s words float along over Misch’s guitar. It’s a phrase that feels so obvious, and I’m sure those who tend to gardens know this more than most, but it seems to land more than before. The impact noticeable, memorable, echoing through my being. Perhaps we’re ingrained to think it’s greener elsewhere. This patch is the problem and not whether we’re watering it. The key is in the watering. How we go about this practice is what defines our patch of grass. No matter where we go, our patch is, perhaps, the same. Some attributes and characteristics have been changed but the essence is the same: Us.

Stepping into Volume 09 of imprint, marks our third year. I am learning that this patch of green that we have been tending to for the last several years will mould, shift, and sculpt. This depends on how we water it and allow it to take its own shape. It has already happened in wonderfully unexpected ways. There is only so much structure or shape we can predetermine. Beyond that, it will absorb what it needs and reject all that is unnecessary. And perhaps, in this practice, we are changed. Our grass is watered as we water that of our writing, our image making, our practice, our magazine.

From light to dark, rigid to supple, new to old, there is so much in between that is bright and vibrant and unexpected. The practice of our magazine has focused on being open to what we receive; being open to deeply listening to what is shared; being open to work taking us to new journeys. This volume, and this year, will be no different. We will continue tending to it as we have done, learning along the way, from past seasons and present ones.

And yet, I know it will be entirely different.
But still.
It will be watered.