Faces of Frontline Foods Chicago

After volunteering my time for a few local restaurants who I had found through Give In Kind, delivering meals to Chicago area frontline workers, I began to see event announcements for Frontline Foods, doing these huge food drives in underserved areas of Chicago.  With so many people out of work, food insecurity is a huge issue for so many families right now, so to see organizations coming together to solve this immediate crisis inspired me to reach out to Frontline Foods and see if I could lend my skills to their cause.  I was thrilled that they accepted my offer right away, but blown away by the PowerPoint deck they sent me, specifically outlining what type of photography they needed and how they wanted it all to look.  Since Frontline Foods currently has chapters all over the United States, including LA, NYC, Austin, San Fransisco, Denver, Charlotte, Maine, and Chicago, they wanted their portraits to have a consistent look to give their brand a cohesive feel.

However, time was against us when my client and I found out that our deadline for getting our portraits delivered to the national office was only five days away.  According to the deck, the photographer was supposed to show up on-site, spend only 10 minutes setting up, and then five minutes of photography, before breaking down to head to the next location.  Since we had to get at least five portraits done in the next few days I decided to make this easier on all of us and with my client’s permission we had everyone come to my backyard.  Only one Frontline Foods volunteer at a time, they could all enter through my side gate, and I would already have the backdrop and lighting set and ready to go. Plus, in the 90+ degree summer heat, I would have time to cool off and stop sweating long enough for my first subject to arrive.

Another rule that was carefully outlined in the creative deck, was all about wearing masks.  Both the photographer and the subject were to have their masks on at all times.  But for someone like Chef Maya-Camille, who is hearing impaired, there was no way I could give her instructions without taking my mask off, she needed to see my mouth in order to truly understand what I was saying.  So I got at least twelve feet away from her, took off my mask, and we were able to communicate.  Once I gave her the rundown of what I wanted to do, she headed onto the set and I headed to the opposite side of my yard so we could continue to be safe during our session.

Everyone arrived with their masks on, and I could feel my brain trying to put together a complete picture of what each person really looked like under their mask. It’s so funny the way we add in a nose and mouth even if we’ve never seen the person before in our lives. After a day of only doing portraits mask on, I had an idea. I really wanted to do a few shots of each person without their masks, this way we could give these images to the volunteers to use for their own purposes, and I got the chance to put that complete photo together.  Each time it felt like this big reveal where the image I had in my head of what they looked like under their masks was completely different than the reality of their true faces.  It was such an odd sensation and continues to be a funny brain tickle, as I’m continuing to do headshots and other portrait photography, always meeting up with my clients for the first time with our masks on.