Photographer Mark Albain brings together a series of black-and-white images in Oh, to See Without My Eyes, a publication whose title is drawn from the opening lyrics of the Sufjan Stevens song “Mystery of Love.”
Albain sets the tone of his publication with a reproduction of the essay “The Threat” by French writer and photographer Hervé Guibert, which takes the difficulty of the reconciliation between the world and its representation, and the place of photography between the two concepts, as its subject. Through Albain’s images, the viewer comes into contact with objects and the environments in which they exist—a morning glory growing through a chainlink fence; a series of abandoned mattresses—as well as the ability to abstract that which is closely focused on yet innately familiar—human hair; the fold of an arm.