Street photography from Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and Washington State, taken during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the election of Joe Biden after the Trump presidency. The photographs below are excerpts from my self-published book, I’m perfect. You change. The book is available here.
A week after the COVID-19 quarantine began, I drove from Baton Rouge to New Orleans to see what the silence and abandonment of the tourist areas felt like. The absence of people echoed the months after Hurricane Katrina. While walking around Jackson Square with my camera, an Asian woman approached and extended her hand for money. She said nothing. I asked if I could take her photograph; she still said nothing but stood waiting. After I took the photo, I put a five-dollar bill in her hand. The exchange was heartbreaking—her forlorn appearance starkly undercut the message on her T-shirt: nobody would change places with her to be as “perfect” as the shirt claimed.
