Behind The Mask 1 of 2 :: The other day while working the seafood counter I found myself helping Anne, who you see here and is one of our regular customers. She’s hard to miss due to the very distinct mask she wears while shopping with her dog’s face printed on it. I assumed she was just another person that couldn’t get enough of their dog and thought little more of it. That all changed the other night when I heard more of their story though:

Turns out Angus was a “rescue” in every sense of the word. As in, on July 2nd, 2016 Anne saw somebody throwing him in a dumpster from a distance.

She assumed he was dead but was still rightly repulsed over – whoever it was – just throwing away their dead dog like that. So, she went to get him out of the dumpster to give him a more proper resting place. Once there, she found that he was alive still. She got him out of there and has since nursed him back to being the devilishly handsome-looking beast you see here on her phone.

I could tell he was everything to her, just as she has been to him. I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t be photographing customers at work, even when they know I’m doing it as Anne did here, but I just couldn’t help but ask her if she’d mind when I heard their story so I could share it with others. I told her that I had worked as a commercial photographer most of my adult life and that I had previously often photographed random strangers I’d meet, and when I did, I’d ask them what one piece of advice they had for the viewers of their photo.

In this case, rather than asking Anne for her one bit of advice, I asked her what she felt Angus’s one bit of advice for us all would be. Almost immediately Anne said:

“Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

What a fitting bit of advice for a bulldog or pit bull – the black sheep of dog breeds – to want us all to know don’t you think? Especially since they often are so sweet-natured as Anne told me Angus is.

So what does any of this have to do with the title of this post? “Behind The Mask 1 of 2.” I will get into the significance of my interaction with Anne and how that title relates to it in tomorrow’s post, “Behind The Mask 2 of 2.” So, be on the lookout for that if you care to hear more…

Behind The Mask 2 of 2 :: Back in August of this year, I had one of my former Creative Circus photography instructors, Kathy Wolfe, comment on one of my posts that they missed seeing the street portraits I’d often do of random strangers, and then being able to read the stories I’d post regarding my interaction with these people.

I think a lot of Kathy both as a photographer and a person, and realized she was right. I had lost my desire to try and help people understand those that were different than them better, through my photography and writing. This was due to me feeling as if an entire swath of people out there had decided it would be cool to label people that didn’t see things as they do as – whatever – when they knew little about those they were assigning such vile labels to.

Furthermore, due to me now working in a grocery store, I could see and feel how the whole mask-wearing thing due to the pandemic was doing us little to no good regarding the transmission of the virus, while also slowly sucking the humanity out of us. There is much more I can say regarding this due to my experiences at the grocery store, but I won’t.

So, within a day or so I decided to go out and start a new series of street portraits just for Kathy titled “Behind The Mask.” I planed to photograph random strangers with and without their masks on and ask them how the pandemic had personally impacted them the most. The idea was for me to try and convey that all these people we see behind the mask these days are still people that may be coping with any number of things emotionally that we can’t as readily pick up on due to half of their face being covered.

To give all of this some context, I should add that prior to this point it had been – rare – to have somebody I approached on the street and take a genuine interest in not wanting me to photograph them and share a little of their story. Me doing so often seemed to have made their day, which would in turn make mine.

Keeping that in mind, consider how it felt to me to have approached around 13 people that day for the new series I was going to break out of my self-imposed reclusive shell with, only to have them all tell me that they were not interested. I could see a concern and even fear in their eyes. Those that were wearing anything that indicated who they worked for were certainly not interested due to the possibility of it coming back on them in a negative way.

That day it became very clear to me that it wasn’t just me that had changed and lost my desire to help others understand those that were different than them better. But that society had changed and had lost their desire to be understood and heard. All thanks to “cancel culture.” That’s how it felt to me at least.

That day the only portrait I captured of a “person” was of Lady Liberty due to the miniature Statue of Liberty that can be found in downtown Atlanta, compliments of The Boy Scouts of America. I couldn’t help but consider that The Statue of Liberty is supposed to represent – liberty – or freedom. Cancel culture, along with the mask and vaccine mandates we’ve all experienced recently have stood in direct opposition to what The Statue of Liberty is supposed to represent though, haven’t they?

This brings me back to why my interaction with Anne the other day, and why the story I told of her and her dog Angus was significant to me: She was the first complete stranger I had photographed and shared the story of since May 16th, 2020 which just happened to be the very start of the pandemic here in America. I’ve pretty much kept to myself since then, not due to fear of the virus, but how society was making me feel.

I wasn’t looking to photograph Anne, or anybody, that night while at work. But I suddenly found myself connecting with the customer in front of me due to us both having a soft spot for dogs. The story of how she had rescued Angus was too good not to share. It wasn’t what was behind the mask that drew me to dig deeper and learn more, but what was printed – on – her mask. Her dog. While talking with Anne I couldn’t help but think about my previously mentioned instructor, Kathy, as I believe she is equally as compassionate a person as Anne had come across as to me, particularly when it comes to dogs. So, I asked Anne if it was okay to do these portraits of her and share her and Angus’ story to honor Kathy’s request of me back in August. These photos and the story behind them are for everybody that may get something out of them but are dedicated to Kathy in particular.

In closing I’ll add why I didn’t do a portrait of Anne without her mask on, as I believe she would have been fine with me doing: I didn’t because I felt her mask was a great example of the need for us all to actively look for the commonalities we have amongst each other these days, even though those in front of us may be wearing a physical, or emotional, mask. Or, more simply put, to not judge a book by its cover as Anne told me Angus would advise us all to do.

It was Anne’s mask that allowed for me to ultimately learn about the compassionate soul that was behind the mask in front of me. The moral of this whole story is that sometimes what you see with your heart is of far more value than what you can see with your eyes. That we should all keep in mind that there is far more to the people in front of us than what’s on their cover, and to do our best to look behind their mask with our hearts when our eyes aren’t able to.