The title of New York-based photographer Dom Marker’s most recent series, “Sin Tax,” is a double entendre. In one sense referencing the government tax on items deemed harmful to society (which, inadvertently or otherwise, preys on the working poor), the phrase also alludes to its homophone, “syntax.” Marker elaborates, explaining:

“This project, part elliptical storytelling, part cultural mirror, focuses on the mnemonics of lower class areas (roughly divided in half between New York and the American south) via street signs, storefronts, graffiti, standalone words and short phrases. Words within photographs, especially when paired with other such photographs that clash in tone, can quickly lose their didactic, if not propagandistic, quality through subversion and distance. My intent is to juxtapose this charged typography with emotional moments in narrative sequence, wherein the paradoxical desires and systematic abuse inherent in our class structure can be told vis-à-vis the visual lexicon of the people.”

See more from “Sin Tax” below!