DOUBLE TAKES
Double Takes is an ongoing photographic project built around visual echoes found across everyday environments. Each work brings together two photographs made at different times and in different places, connected through unexpected similarities in colour, geometry, gesture, scale or spatial arrangement. Presented side by side, unrelated scenes begin to appear as though the visual world is rhyming with itself.
The pairings often carry a quiet sense of humour. A human posture finds its equivalent in an object, a colour resurfaces in an unrelated setting, or two spaces unexpectedly share the same visual structure. These connections are not staged or searched for in advance. They emerge through photographing instinctively and later recognising relationships between images that were originally made independently.
Juxtaposition is therefore central to the project. Meaning does not reside entirely within either photograph, but is produced in the space between them. Double Takes asks why we are compelled to connect unrelated images, how pattern recognition shapes the way we organise visual information, and whether placing two photographs together can create a third meaning that neither possesses alone.
The project also reflects on seeing within contemporary image culture. We encounter and process photographs in unprecedented quantities, frequently through scrolling, grids, archives and algorithmically organised feeds. Recognition becomes rapid and comparative: we scan for resemblance, difference and repetition. Double Takes slows this process down, turning an everyday habit of visual recognition into the subject of sustained looking.
All photographs in the series are made using a mobile phone. Its portability allows the project to remain responsive to fleeting observations, while also connecting the work to the device through which much contemporary photography is now produced, viewed and circulated. Rather than treating the phone as a lesser photographic tool, the project uses its everyday status as part of the work, questioning distinctions between casual image making and considered photographic practice.
The project sits between conceptual and post documentary photography, beginning with unconstructed observations of the everyday while using sequencing and juxtaposition to move beyond description. It draws on William Eggleston’s recognition of visual significance within ordinary surroundings and Georges Perec’s attention to the infra ordinary, while its engagement with mobile and networked image culture connects to Lev Manovich’s writing on how digital platforms and portable cameras have reshaped contemporary photographic production and perception.
Ultimately, Double Takes is concerned with the pleasure and instability of recognition. Each pairing asks the viewer to perform a small act of comparison: to notice the echo, construct the relationship and reconsider two otherwise unrelated moments through their temporary connection.