A Picture You Already Know
SZE TSUNG LEONG

This essay explores the knotty issue of recurring subjects, compositions, and styles in contemporary photography. The essay cites the visual conceits that have recurred within art photography over the past decade, calling the reader to consider even the most slight or elliptical subjects in photographs to be ones that form the iconography of the medium. This essay also considers the conscious and unconscious ways in which individual photographers deal with the repetition of the same visual forms in their own practice.