Artwork Title by Anthony Clark

The three images contributed to this issue represent, each in their own way, a moment of curiosity. They also highlight the unpredictable ways the significance of a photograph evolves long after an image is captured. These images also evidence the ways parenthood has changed my priorities in the world and as a photographer.

The cover photo comes from the grounds of the Tenryu-ji temple on the outskirts of Kyoto. From the moment I first saw an image of this bamboo grove and felt its power to demand attention in the most gentle way, I promised myself I would find a way to experience it. Although my memory of being at Tenryu-ji remains vivid almost a decade later, the most powerful relationship I have to this image stems from its placement–printed poster size–on the wall of a hospital room serving as a focal point for my wife during the birth of our first child. When I see the image now I still feel the calm of standing under the towering stalks, but it is awe at my wife’s strength and the joy of seeing our daughter for the first time that flood my mind.

Artwork Title by Anthony Clark

In 2018, our eldest child asked to see the Statue of Liberty. The image in this issue was one in a time-lapse series of the day dawning after we spent a night on Governor’s Island in the middle of New York Harbor. The view of the statue from the island is about as good as it gets from land. That weekend we learned Lady Liberty is striding over broken chains meant to recognize new American freedoms and the end of slavery. In early designs, she carried those broken chains in her hands, but American financiers persuaded the statue’s sculptor, Auguste Bartholdi, to make them less prominent. The Black press noted immediately the contradictions between this symbolism and reality. During our current national and personal reckonings with the white supremacy and inequality that persist in America, I often think back on how I felt standing in the predawn light that morning, hoping the new day would bring something better than the last, wondering how my family would be part of it.

Artwork Title by Anthony Clark

Shortly after the opening of the “new” Whitney Museum in New York City I brought our then 2.5-year-old child for a visit. After exploring several floors on a Saturday afternoon she fell asleep in my arms. In an uncrowded gallery where half the occupants were friends, I laid her down on a bench. I love this image for its performance art vibe and as a reminder of the trust our children place in us and the space we make for them to inhabit and grow on their own.

It’s harder to imagine doing something like this with our second daughter who was born in April 2020.

Anthony Clark was born and raised in Poughkeepsie, New York, and first became serious about photography in high school when capturing images of constellations and star trails on film that he loaded, developed and printed himself. Photography has taken him to the White House and the wildlands of Montana. He has photographed the Gulf of Mexico after a disaster and urban centers creating their own renewal. When he doesn’t have a camera in his hand, he is focused on making investments in clean energy and infrastructure across the Americas.