Alone Forever Sometimes is a collection of scenes from a dream, strikingly familiar yet disquieting and enigmatic. In the book’s introduction, Russell Joslin is unable to sleep after a 31-hour long journey. Looking down at his photographs in that somnambulant state, it seemed to him he was looking at them for the first time.

The book compiles self-portraits across 19 years of Joslin’s career, yet they appear to have been taken on the same day and in the same place. This illusion can be attributed to the shades of black, white, and grey that characterize and unite them, or perhaps it is because they all emit an unexplainable eerieness, despite bordering banal objects and settings. Remarkable photographs are often so because they capture monumental events or substances of gravity. Joslin’s photographs result from his crafty manipulation of the camera and objects within the frame.

One photograph, Knockabout Empty (2016), depicts Joslin dressed in black, halfway through a pair of white wooden doors. His body and head are blurred as if caught in fierce motion, while the rest of the image is still. This transformation of the photograph, from a much less stimulating scene to a ghastly illustration of the manic mind, is the product of Joslin’s technique and creativity.

In his self-portraits, Joslin is dressed in black and posed in front of white walls, broken-down buildings, in the middle of the woods. All appear deserted except for his dark, obtrusive figure–a symbol of loneliness. The photographs leave readers feeling as deserted and protuberant as he appears in them. Joslin’s features are ambiguous throughout, his face concealed in clothing or in blur, washed out by white light. Here, he is not Russell Joslin. Rather, he is every person who flips through the photographs, somehow finding familiarity in their strangeness.

He embodies different characters, some are laying down, their heads point to the camera in despondence. Others hold their limbs close together, contorted. Some face forward, with a stern but dauntless expression, others turn away in unease. Alone Forever Sometimes is a commentary on the versatility of human emotion, the depth of the conscious and subconscious mind. Unique to each and every human being, they are depths often explored alone. Joslin’s photographs are eccentric at first glance, but oddly identifiable nevertheless. In this way, they work to alleviate the loneliness they illustrate.

The book’s introduction reads, “the daydream is what reality is”–a metaphor for gratitude. But this sentiment is also illustrated by the photographs. Like a dream, they are foreign yet affable, recognizable. But this is because they are not just dreams, but reflections of human existence at its most vulnerable.

Russell Joslin’s Alone Forever Sometimes is not a long book, there is not much to read after its introductions. Readers might flip through it once, find they do not understand what the images are trying to say, put it aside. But not long after, they will crack open its spine again, realize they are unable to resist its peculiarity, its intimacy. Even if it frightens them a little.