In January we started the new format of More With Less Issue. Each time 3 images commented by the photographer. Jess T. Dugan is a large-format portrait photographer currently living in Cambridge, MA. Jess earned a BFA in Photography from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and an ALM in Museum Studies from Harvard University.
Dad after work
«I grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas, where my dad still lives, but moved with my mom to Boston, MA at the age of 13. Every time I go home, I make an effort to photograph my dad. I had been waiting all afternoon for him to come home from work so I could make a portrait of him in his uniform, but he got home much later than expected, by which point it was dark outside. My only option was to photograph him outside on the back porch, a floodlight illuminating his face, with the night sky behind him. This photograph could be perceived as being about the military or the war, but to me it is primarily an intimate photograph of my father.»
Marc and Nicholas
«This photograph is of my uncle and cousin in Goldsboro, North Carolina. Because I was raised in the south but spent my teen years in Boston, I have a dual sense of where I’m from or where “home” is. This image was made during a trip back to the south where I was exploring my own sense of home and examining the experience of feeling like I belonged there but no longer fit in. When I visit Arkansas or North Carolina, everything looks simultaneously familiar and foreign to me. Riding on Marc’s knee while he mows the lawn is a coveted position among his three kids, and Nicholas often falls asleep in Marc’s lap while he’s going around and around on his tractor.»
Peepaw in his pine trees
«Peepaw is my grandfather. He spends a lot of time in the woods and finds peace by sitting beneath his trees with his hands rubbing his dog Moose’s fur. In this photograph, he is standing in the middle of his plot of land of pine trees, a place he goes often and holds sacred. When we were there, he pointed out the details of every tree and his concerns about the trees being wiped out by pine beetles. It is a wondrous thing to see someone so intimately connected to the landscape around them. I left him small within the frame to try to capture the magnitude of the effect that nature has on him.»
© All copyright remains with photographer Jess T. Dugan