Red, White and Grey
For the past decade, I’ve been coming across men across India wearing the same red, white and grey stripes t-shirt. The first time I saw anyone wearing it was in 2011, when a friend wore it. After that, I started seeing it everywhere, leading me to discover what is known as the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon, where something you recently learned suddenly appears 'everywhere'. Also called Frequency Bias (or Illusion), the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon is the seeming appearance of a newly-learned (or paid attention to) concept in unexpected places.
For the past decade, I’ve been coming across men across India wearing the same red, white and grey stripes t-shirt. The first time I saw anyone wearing it was in 2011, when a friend wore it. After that, I started seeing it everywhere, leading me to discover what is known as the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon, where something you recently learned suddenly appears 'everywhere'. Also called Frequency Bias (or Illusion), the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon is the seeming appearance of a newly-learned (or paid attention to) concept in unexpected places.
This has been an ongoing photo series for over a decade, and it always gives me immense pleasure finding and photographing strangers wearing the t-shirt, helping me pursue my red, white and grey obsession. It has also made me a more keen observer of the world, since it’s in moments of attentiveness that the serendipitous encounter with the wearers happens.
