EET: Ears, Eyes & Thoughts...

Abstracted Shots Frame the Endless Patterns of Architecture in Perspective-Bending Photos

Tobi Shonibare, aka Tobi Shinobi, has an eye for the symmetry and surreal illusion within urban architecture and landscapes.

Often turning his camera upward or peering down from above, Shinobi transforms familiar structural elements like transit lines and buildings into strange scenarios: a stairwell appears like an M.C. Escher woodcut, sand dunes riddled with tracks obscure a roadway, and a seemingly endless array of plant-filled tubes dangle from the ceiling in hypnotizing rows. Shinobi abstracts and decontextualizes much of his subject matter, which shifts attention to shape, texture, and shadow.

More than 80 of his shots are compiled in Equilibrium, a new edition in Trope’s Emerging Photographer Series. The 144-page book is available on Bookshop, and you can follow Shinobi’s travels around the world, including to his native London and around his current residence in Chicago, on Instagram.

A Map and History of Peiping (Beijing) by Frank Dorn (1936)