Backs

Seen from behind, a stranger can look like someone I know. The shoulders, the tilt of the neck, the way the hair falls — for a moment the body belongs to a person from my life. Then it shifts, and the likeness is gone: it was never them, only my wish to find them in a crowd.

I make these on 4×5, slowly, so the back stays a back — no face to correct the mistake. Without a face the body becomes a surface where memory sets down someone who isn't there.