I love symmetry. And I don’t just mean in my compositions. One of my main goals when it comes to editing and laying out my photos is to find parallels between images so that there’s a symmetry (or mimicry) between the pairing. When I do make the connection between a pair of otherwise unrelated images (such as a portrait and an image of a plant) it soothes something deep in me. While mimics are certainly visually pleasing to look at from an aesthetics standpoint, there’s also a wonderful layer of simile/metaphor when two images are paired together. What am I implying about one by pairing it with the other? For example, by pairing the red tree under a starry sky with an image of blurry red hands, it’s as if I’m suggesting that the branches are reaching for the stars just like the hands are grasping for something just beyond the borders of the image.
I never plan for these mimics. Often what happens is that when I’m editing a shoot I’ll come across an image that reminds me of one I made years before. Once I pair up the images it immediately creates a new narrative for both of them. It’s the same part of my brain that I use to pair songs for a playlist. I love thinking about them as pieces to an ongoing puzzle that can fit into an infinite number of pairings. Each image or song changes in feeling and meaning based on what it’s paired with. It’s magical.
