newyorker:

“I don’t look for these notes,” the Japanese-born, New York-based photographer Hiroyuki Ito told me. “Rather they find me.”

In his forays throughout the city, Ito is constantly on the lookout for those quiet, yet quintessentially New York images—serendipitous, a bit dark, and suggestive of secrets. Among his findings has been this series of notes, photographed as he found them. “They don’t mean much to me, since none of them were addressed to me,” he said, but still, “they tickle my imagination.” This is in part, he explains, because there is no guarantee that they were not intended for him. “The city is full of people whose potentials are never fully articulated and soon to be forgotten.”

Click-through to see a slideshow of Ito’s photographs.