Book Review: Dead Ringer by Yael Eban and Matthew Gamber
Written by Makenna Karas
Photo Edited by Kelly Woodyard
In a world where nothing is ever twice the same, something about the concept of identicality muddles our minds. From popular media to case studies to philosophical contemplation, humanity has long been obsessed with twins. Interested in exploring the duplicates that naturally occur within photography, Yael Eban and Matthew Gamber’s recently released book, “Dead Ringer” presents an impressive collection of twin images, each bearing uncanny resemblance or stark juxtaposition.
The book is the product of a seven-year artistic endeavor that Eban and Gamber embarked upon, wandering in and out of thrift stores and vintage markets in search of old photographic pairs. A nearly foreign concept in our modern, digitalized world, the pairs originated from when people used to print one image for their wallet and another for the fridge. There was a tactility to it. Photographs were tangible objects that traveled through different spaces, getting worn and torn, lost, damaged, and changed. The physicality of their existence rendered them capable of telling stories in a manner that a digital format cannot offer.
While some of the image pairs were collected together, many were found separately, catalyzing Eban and Gamber’s curiosity. Perhaps one print was sent to a lover, and the other kept in a personal diary. But what happened next? The separate fates that awaited each copy spill like family secrets across each page of this book, inviting you to piece together the enigmatic nature of two paradoxically identical things and the antithesis of it all at once.
Many pairs are true twins, inviting your eyes to search for minuscule disparities like the mystery clues. Others vary with tone and wash, one basking in warm hues of rose while the other dips into pools of blue. The blue tones are drenched in melancholy and loss, while the warmer hues make the scene feel summery and familiar, like a memory that could be your own.
Much of the beauty of the pairs come from that sense of relatability as if these are images you might find in a box in your grandmother’s attic. The collection traces the stories of people whose lives would otherwise be untraceable. They do not present movie stars or grand, memorable moments of history but rather the sweet, intimate, mundane moments of everyday life. They give voice to slivers of family history hiding in some corner of an antique shop, only to find their way into the hands of Eban and Gamber. Fractured and forgotten, these stories are given a space to be told.
"Prom 1" and "Prom 2" beautifully embody many of those fractured stories' divergent natures, offering torn remnants to piece together. One image portrays two smiling teenagers on their prom night, linked arm in arm as they grin. Yet its lost twin image has been roughly torn down the middle, cutting one of them out of the shot. Only the mere trace of his existence remains, still clutching her arm. You don’t need to know who these people are or what happened to them to see that when placed together, the twin images tell a story of love and loss of connection that we can all recognize.
Continue to turn through the pages, and you will find yourself turning through your mind, getting lost and found within the ghost stories these uncanny pairs whisper. A truly unique and impressive body of work, “Dead Ringer” is a book that contains the multiplicities of fate and the eerie beauty of life in one arresting collection.
