American photographer, writer, and curator Aaron Schuman was born in Amherst, a small town in Massachusetts, the same small town that gave birth to Emily Dickinson on December 10, 1830.

It is to her, but also to Amherst itself, that Aaron pays homage in his latest photographic series SLANT. The whole project was born from the “Police Reports” section of a local newspaper, a weekly collection of crimes or even just suspicious events that occurred in the city. In 2014, the photographer started to cut out these blanks and store them, without yet having an idea on how to use them.

It wasn’t until later, after taking a series of photographs taken in the streets around Amherst, that he came up with the idea of accompanying the images with police reports, creating an association of elements with something in common, but not perfectly matching, just like Emily Dickinson’s famous slant rhyme.

Imperfect rhymes, or slant rhymes, are made up of words that sound the same. These assonances, then, can link two words, but also word and image; it is Dickinson herself who says this in the poem Tell all the truth but tell it slant.

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —

In the same way as Dickinson, Aaron Schuman has created such a profound link between image and text that he has created a whole story that is composed of Amherst facts and Amherst photographs, but far from the true story of Amherst.

The final result, published in the book SLANT, begins as a reportage of a small town like many others but ends up being a reflection on the thousands of false news stories we are surrounded every day.