Seeing St. Elmo
Reed Schick (American, b. 1997)
Digital Chromatic Prints, 2020
On April 2, 2020, as positive cases of COVID-19 continued to increase in the area, Mayor Andy Burke signed a “shelter at home” executive order. Chattanooga residents, already grappling with the rupture of caused schools and postponed parties, now faced a new reality full of hand sanitizer, canceled appointments, online church services, shuttered businesses, and exhausted essential workers. So much was unknown.
Many of us walked in our homes, encased behind glass as time seemed to freeze.
Covenant College alumnus and photographer Reed Schick (19’) set out to capture this season of fragility and uncertainty. Over the course of about a month, Schick photographed his neighbors starting with those who he knew and slowly expanding by word of mouth. Made as he stood outside, sometimes crouching in shrubbery or looking up from two stories below, the photographs did not resemble traditional family portraits.
In one image, a family crowds together against their glass door, barely squeezing into the frame, in another, a lone woman seems to surface from within the glassy reflections of foliage outside her window. An elderly couple beams cheerfully, surrounded by the brightly painted wood of their historic home. Often, faces are obscured by the glare of the light, an errant branch, or a piece of window trim. We can see Schick’s neighbors, but we are acutely aware of our distance from them. In this, Schick’s photographs complicate some of our accepted notions of what we a photograph should offer its viewer.
Since its invention in the early nineteenth century, photography has been valued for the visual access it provides. Scientists used photographs to study specimens, perfectly preserved without decay as a daguerreotype or albumen print. Photographs allowed for the study of fleeting natural phenomena, of motion, and even of other human beings.
Schick, however, plays with our expectation that photographs will provide us with certainty. We peer at each photograph, perhaps finding comfort in the sight of a familiar face, but unnerved by the insistent barriers between us. While the figures remain still and silent, the light and reflections seem to swim before our eyes, obscuring our ability to see clearly. The literal distance between bodies foregrounds our longing, our anxieties, and hope for a some-day reunion.
-Dr. Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt