Jô Sandin is a New York City-based photographer. He refers to his portfolio as a visual journal, as it is full of stories about the everyday life of passersby pieced together by the author.
People watching and making up backstories for strangers, the supposed purpose of their travel, occupation, or nationality, is one of the universal human experiences. This is what the quiet and minimal photography of Sandin offers. It has a vintage quality to it, from when looking around was actually the thing to do when spending time outside, instead of staring at the always-available phone. The artist not only looks around but also observes and absorbs; he invites us to do the same, presenting us with pieces of someone else’s day.
Liminal and often somber frames photographed by Sandin are lessons in empathy and storytelling. As the artist states himself about one of them, “a woman at a bar table, visibly shaken by what she is listening to, her wine untouched and too distant from her position to assume she’s even interested in sipping from it. With the mystery of who sits across from her, the sting of what she hears now shifts to the weight of the unseen person doing the talking.”
It is up to the viewer to come up with the story; the photographer is here to feed our imagination. Sandin treads carefully on the border between storytelling and spontaneity. If anything, the story coalesces after the fact, meaning that the photographer decodes the message of each piece after the moment has been captured.
He agrees that his method is about seeing the “moments unfold not through what is fully seen, but through what quietly slips away.” Putting the pieces of this amalgam together requires reflection and pondering, whether it is individual or shared. It’s also what some of his photographs entice us to do. For example, one of his captures depicts a small gathering “where presence is doubled yet diluted, a moment where intimacy is edged by detachment,” as he says.
In others, reflection becomes a common experience, bringing people together or dividing them. “A row of passengers sits together yet apart, each turned inward, absorbed in private worlds. Their proximity emphasizes distance—their shared space is marked by a collective solitude.”
“Each image gestures toward something just beyond itself—an absence that lingers, defines, and quietly endures,” Sandin summarizes.
Read our “Roots” issue in full
The new theme, born as usual from what the submitted works held in common, is “ROOTS.” Within its pages, we present the artworks, creativity, and inspiration of 60 visual artists and writers from 21 countries around the world. Their diverse voices come together around a shared exploration of the return to where one belongs, the invisible threads of tradition that shape identity, and the ongoing reconnection with nature, others, and oneself.
We’re a team of writers using our craft to spotlight art in its most honest form. RAWGUE. started as a bi-monthly editorial experiment where each issue’s theme is dictated by the submitted work, thus removing editorial bias from the equation and preserving a more raw approach. We focus on all forms of poetry: written, photographed, painted, drawn, and filmed.
