Transforming Perspectives

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.

Two boys get ready to go down a slide wearing masks they decorated.

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.

A boy opens a screen door and stands in the doorway wearing a mask he made.
A boy wearing a mask mows the lawn with a kids' lawn mower as another boy stands nearby him and looks at him
A grandmother wears a scary mask and sits across from her granddaughter who is decorating her own mask.
A girl adjusts a mask on her face.

An afternoon with Genya's Family, Altanta Family Photographer

This time last year

older girl holds cat on her shoulder while a dog jumps up and puts his paws on her

This time last year Genya was celebrating a birthday, and I got to photograph her family at their home in the afternoon.

They had a tea party on the porch.

The kids made a delightfully tasty mess with frosting and sprinkles on a birthday cake.

The family took to the street with bikes and scooters and skateboards. They raced. They laughed. They cried.

They played hide and seek. They played tag.

They played in the backyard.

They dribbled sand on Hotwheels and dominated a plastic playhouse.

They climbed trees. There were pranks and teases and teens.

They picked fights. They picked flowers.

This time last year, this is what life looked like for them. This is what life felt like for them.

Time is sneaky in the way it shifts forward, and photos of your family that capture the specificity of your life together help bring you back to that moment.

What was this time last year like for you?

a mother and daughter look up at a boy as he climbs the chain of a porch swing
a mom and dad kiss as their kids decorate a birthday cake
a dog sniffs cake pieces and sprinkles on a table
a girl puts her arms out to balance as she skateboards down a street
a mom and daughter both have one foot on a skateboard as they look at each and smile
a little girl stands on a scooter and rolls towards her mom
a family runs and rolls down the street together
a mom holds her toddler as she cries
a toddler smiles at the camera as she scoots down the street with her mom behind her smiling
a portrait of a girl sitting on a skateboard on the sidewalk
a mom and her daughters walk down the street
a boy covers his eyes as he counts during hide and seek
a boy runs from his older sister, putting his arm out to not get tagged
an image from behind of a toddler being held by her big sister
a mom and dad cover their eyes to play hide and seek with their backs to each other
a mom finds her daughter who was hiding as the rest of the family watches
a family plays in their backyard
a mom puts sand on hot wheels cars as her daughter watches
a mom and dad watch their kids with their arms around each other
two sisters having a moment
a portrait of a girl sitting up in a tree
a portrait of a girl in her playhouse
a boy suspended in air after getting thrown up into the air by his dad
two children get thrown in the air and played with by their mom and dad
a mom sits on her steps with 3 of her kids
a toddler picks flowers while wearing a monster bike helmet

An afternoon with the Kolts family, Atlanta family photographer

SMOOSHERS FOR LIFE

a family snuggles on a bed with hands and legs all intertwined

“Y’all, team Kolts are smooshers. There is no personal space in our space. It’s 100 percent communal almost 100 percent of the time, and if I’m being 100 percent: it’s a stretch for me. But, as much as it maxes me, it grows me. As I instruct deep nose breaths, I also breathe. I am undone by the stretch of it, but that makes for a very vulnerable welcome for anyone who comes to the door.”

I fully felt these words that Caroline Kolts shared about the life in these pictures and the life in their home, a home they so generously open and share with their community. The lack of personal space that can feel so suffocating in one second and so satisfying in the next is a feeling I know very well. It’s a feeling I know I’m going to wish I could time travel back into someday when my kids refuse to hold my hand someday.

I’m all about this family, these smooshers, all smooshiness. Especially now, in this pandemic landscape, where smooshiness feels even more physical. Where it’s amplified in it’s omnipresence in homes with young kids who are home all day; where it’s amplified in it’s ominous absence in homes of those alone waiting for the world to be safe to them again.

It’s something I have been trying to capture in photos…a challenge of sorts. To create a tactile experience through a visual one. To awaken a physical sensation within a fraction of a second frame. As our lives have become increasingly virtual, I think I must be longing for more real life haptic experiences.

I hope these photos can summon the smooshiness of this family when they need it most in the future.

I feel so grateful to go in homes where I get to be a part of this sort of knee-deep vulnerability.

a baby rests his head on his mom's shoulder next to her hair
a portrait of a young girl sitting at a table holding her braid to the side
a woman balances her baby on her hand as he looks at the camera
a dad looks at his child as they both are on the top of a treehouse
a dad and son sit on top of an a-frame playhouse while a mom pushes a baby in a car while her daughter rides on top in their backyard
kids climb a playhouse while a dad leans over the top of a play car to look at his son
baby sits underneath giant elephant ear plants outside
a baby drives a toy car in in his backyard and his toddler brother stands next to the car
a mother kneels in front of her son and shows him a bug on her finger
a mother holds the handlebars of a bike that her son is riding and rides him around the yard
a father places his arm around his daughter as they share a quiet moment on a hammock
parents swing two of their children on a hammock while a baby sits nearby
KoltsFamSocialMedia-18.jpg
a dad holds his baby who is smiling and reaching out for his smiling mother who is standing in front of him
a baby kisses his mom's face
a toddler buries his face in his mom's skirt and clutches it with his hands
a mother and father look down at their baby son and tickle him as he looks back them and smiles
a young boy straddles a doorway with his arms and legs extended out
a dad photographs his baby son with his phone in a bedroom with the rest of the family present
a mother hugs her daughter on the floor next to a bed as a toddler flops over his dad who is lying on the bed and a baby leans his head on the edge of the bed
a mother holds her daughter's hand as she balances on a stack of blankets
a father touches his daughter's cheek with his finger
a toddler licks peanut butter straight from the jar off a knife
boy looks out the front of his window with his nose smushed against it
a dad puts house numbers on his house as his wife and kids sit in a hammock and watch
a mom plays with her baby and two other kids on a hammock
a boy hangs onto his dad's arm and helps him put house numbers above the door
a portrait of Zella
a baby takes his first step as his parents and older sister look on with amazement
a husband twirls his wife in front of their house