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Matinee: Laura Fuchs Quarantine Story
31 July 2021
Saturday matinees long ago let us escape from the ordinary world to the island of the Swiss Family Robinson or the mutinous decks of the Bounty. Why not, we thought, escape the usual fare here with Saturday matinees of our favorite photography films?
So we're pleased to present the 407th in our series of Saturday matinees today: Laura Fuchs Quarantine Story.
If we were the sort of editor who takes liberties, we'd name this video Smiling With Your Eyes because that is Laura Fuchs's quarantine story. She took short walks around New York City with her Canon, asking people if she could take a photo of them smiling behind their masks.
Of course, they said. Well, some of them.
But the rejections didn't bother her. One day she got 18 noes and two yeses. It's not her, though. She realizes people are afraid of getting the virus. "I totally understand," she said, "but I think it's so important that we all continue to stay positive."
Fuchs herself certainly stays positive. You get four-and-a-half up-beat minutes with her in this clip produced by Natalia Latukhina. But it feels like 30 seconds.
As she talks about her experiences, we see her at work on the street and we see the product of her work. Both are engaging.
She likes amusing masks, but that isn't what makes the picture. "I think what makes the photo great," she says, "is the smile of the person." And, she found, you could see them smiling through their eyes.
"A genuine smile shows in your eyes more than anything else," she says. That's how you can still manage to see a smile on someone wearing a mask.
The images have become a project called Mask Smile that includes hundreds of photos of New Yorkers mask-smiling.
Fuchs describes herself as a "photographer based in NYC. born and raised in Princeton, N.J. committed to finding and documenting joy in every day." And she does.
Put your mask on. Watch the clip. Smile.