Intro and Coda by Tim Maul

One month ago now feels like a year, when Loren Dent proposed to Hannah Alderfer and I that an online (and later print) issue of D/R be assembled in response to the gathering COVID-19 pandemic, which soon swelled to historic proportions. That same week, I had contributed a related image to a site affiliated with the institution where I currently teach (my, or anyone's, future there is unknown at this time). Soon after, I scrolled down this site, fully expecting supine Pre-Raphaelite/hipster reenactments of mourning with obscured faces and many hands touching windowpanes, etc. Instead I was caught off guard by an archive that, while including some of what is described above, was also comprised of photographs that might signal the collapse of societal norms way beyond what my friend (and contributor to this issue) Allen Frame labeled the “narcissism of youth.” In place of the earnest melancholy of the “photo essay” appeared a trove of research material in a behavioral study of confined, camera-possessing post-adolescents in full Lord of The Flies mode. The frenzied nudity, tentative excursions into nature, and occasionally unsettling grotesque masquerade could easily attract the scrutiny of D/R's intended readership. (I should clarify that no single image here resonates emotionally like those by journalists or others documenting COVID-19-related stories and events.)

The perfect storm of the “big pause” aligning with our addiction to the iPhone, webcam, TikTok, Instagram, and other social media contributes to the inverted pyramid of images produced on a daily basis by one-person branding empires operating out of a bedroom. I am an awkward fit into this era; reviewing photography students via Zoom several weeks ago, I remembered the dark intimate space of the confessional that I repeatedly lied to get out of by talking into a screen. Those fortunate enough to have only boredom as a major concern can select from a maelstrom of forensic voyeurism with entertainers holding