Pictures from the Back Porch*

*Since the beginning of the Pandemic, our household has consisted of three persons: me, my wife, and our son. In response to the necessity of being homebound, my wife and I created a makeshift workspace on the back porch of our house, one she uses as a workshop for dyeing fabric and I use as a space for taking photographs. We strung clothes lines across the screened porch so that she could hang newly dyed fabric samples to dry, and I covered the window screens with yardage of fabric as a backdrop for taking pictures (and to make the space more private when taking photographs). In these Pictures from the Back Porch, my wife and son have played along as models, present if not always enthusiastic about the roles being played ‘on’ camera. MA is reluctant to appear in front of the camera, preferring to be shrouded or obscured by the fabric within the picture; Willie, who is a musician and performer, can enter the back porch as another stage… The past couple of years have been long and difficult ones. At home, we shared a sense of fear, isolation, and uncertainty brought on by the pandemic, and just like the rest of the world, we also faced personal issues as individuals and as a family. And at home, I continue to take these photographs on the back porch, hoping that something honest results from the tension of our need to “conceal” and “reveal” ourselves in the images created on this stage. Luke Jordan