LIFE IN 2021
I’m honored to have the photo below on display as part of the DFP group exhibition Life in 2021. Documentary Family Photographers (DFP) is a global community, directory, and photography resource and education platform committed to empowering and connecting families and photographers from all walks of life. The organization aims to transform perspectives and to create an impact on lives through documentary photography and community. Life in 2021 showcases images from documentary family photographers from around the world. The imagery highlighted in the Life in 2021 exhibit is of true stories from 2021 and the universal yet multi-faceted experiences of the year - the good, the bad, the funny, and more. Life in 2021 will be available to viewers online from January 21st – March 6th, 2022. For more information about DFP, or to view the exhibit starting January 21st, please visit www.dfp-gallery.com.
Masked
This photo was taken during a family gathering in Iowa in the fall of 2021. The kids decorated masks, and then they went about playing with their masks on, completely unaware of how their innocent environment and childhood play had suddenly turned macabre. It’s this play of illusion vs. reality that kept me coming back to these images and how they relate to our lives in 2021, a year where our lives were still disrupted by the pandemic. A year where we were still wearing masks even though we thought we wouldn’t be. A year where people’s perceptions of reality varied greatly, even within my own family.
The Halloween mask, as a symbolic representation of death, is unsettling on a child. Placing a child within this frightening illusion is the sort of thing that scary movies are made of. Masks affect our perceptions of reality. This may be why the idea of wearing a mask has been a very emotional and polarizing part of the American experience of this pandemic. The idea of the mask itself requires an acceptance of a reality that includes sickness and death. Within this context, wearing a mask has become a sort of performative act, much like wearing a Halloween mask, where an illusion of how you want to be perceived based on your reality is projected onto others.
The following photos are part of this series but are not included as part of the exhibition.
