TOKYO-2019 People / Portrait

The Lincoln Dress

  • Prize
    Bronze in People/Portrait
  • Photographer
    Jeremy Amar
  • Agency / Studio
    Amar Productions
  • Technical Info
    Yashica Mat 124g, Ilford Delta 100, Natural Light, F/3.5 1/500
  • Photo Date
    05/01/2019

“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” - Abraham Lincoln This Summer, Piper Theatre presents the World Premiere of John P. McEneny’s “The Lincoln Dress.” It’s a ghost story. These portraits of the cast are inspired by the work of Alexander Gardner. His haunting mugshot photos of Abraham Lincoln's convicted murderers were taken in the hours leading up to their July 7th, 1865 execution. They remain today a visceral record of that historic moment. We follow in their haunting shadows.

I was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, a factory town (“Lynn, Lynn city of sin”). When I was six, my family followed my father’s job to the bluegrasses of Louisville, Kentucky. I grew up idly following storm drains, cutting my own paths to adventure. I was, and still am prone to unscheduled drifting. Photography gives me permission, a license to visit the lives of others, the courage to really meet the people I photograph, and the passion to observe and honor the most intimate of our human experiences and emotions. I call it "visual breathing."