People I May Know

In the series of portraits called People I May Know, I aim to reflect the evasive nature of human connections. Seven years ago I started to photograph people I somehow recognized, on whom I saw something familiar, strangers and friends alike. The need to create these portraits came from my feeling loneliness and lack of contact. To find something familiar on other people was a solace, even if this familiarity was plainly superficial. To ask to take someone’s picture is an invitation to a moment of intimacy. Just by looking at the photographs it is impossible to tell which of my subjects are close to me and who I have never seen again after the shoot. I feel this is representative of the current state of relationships, where the physical closeness of friendships has nearly lost its meaning. We show ourselves and see our friends more and more just through images in social media. The title, People I May Know, is both a suggestion to contemplate this change, but also a nod to the feature of Facebook. The partly manufactured intimacy of my portraits aims to ask, can we ever know each other just by looking?