2020 Pre-Election Day Coffee Shop Outdoor Portraits

A week before the November 2020 elections in the United States, I had coffee outside with a friend, a photographer--a really good one at that--who usually takes a picture of me when we meet. Without turning the table, I asked him to hold still for me to make his portrait in a soft morning light with a weathered stucco wall behind him. His mask dangled off one ear, Covid-19 anxieties present in the alcove above the percussive brick road in Little Italy where we sat dressed for winter drinking coffee. The energy of being with a friend I hadn't seen in nearly a year; the anxieties around the upcoming election and how each of us related to one another during a pandemic and a divisive political climate; and the soft 10 a.m. light conspired to inspire me to return each morning to the coffee shop to make more portraits in that same spot, mainly of strangers who became friends, some of close friends who humored my lens. Eight mornings became 80 portraits and November 3, 2020.