1 Year, 700 Masks, 1 Minute

photographed March 26, 2020 - March 25, 2021

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My lovely wife and I walk the downtown area of Santa Rosa, California on an almost-daily basis. In March of 2020 I started photographing discarded masks. We saw lost or tossed masks on most outings. It’s gross. It’s a bio-hazard. I don’t understand why people throw them on the ground in such profusion. So many masks. It makes me sad, it makes me angry. It makes me dislike people even more than I already do. But, the mask photography became an obsession and every mask had to be documented. We grew adept at spotting masks from a distance. “There’s one.” “Here’s another.” Some masks were more of a prize than others, a fancy fabric mask seemed like more of a reward. It really isn’t though, it’s just prettier litter.

One year has passed and this project comes to a close. So, what to do with over 700 photographs of masks? I answered this by putting them all together in a short video. I offer a local glimpse of the global problem of discarded masks. It’s not pretty.