When commercial photography assignments disappeared with the advent of COVID-19, Justin Limoges knew he wasn’t alone in seeing his work vanish and his life revolve around home. So he started visiting friends to check in and snap a quick pic. Those simple drive-by reconnections proved more than he bargained for.
“There was such good feedback from so many people that I decided to make an Instagram account to share it,” he said. “And it really struck a chord. The way it grew happened organically. It just took on its own life.”
Word of his project spread through a six-degrees-of-separation grapevine. “It’s amazing how in isolation so many of us were connected even though we were apart.”
He pushed to keep up with the fluid environment. “Everything was changing so quickly with the whole situation.”
Though COVID-19 has meant uncertainty, he said, it has also meant “a silver lining of spending more time together and having more intentional conversations with friends and family.”
He is intent on being true to people’s lived reality without adornment, though he does ask subjects to wave and smile as a kind of hello from the homefront signature for his Stay Home, Wave Hi project.
“It’s like a slice of life. I’m seeing everybody through the same lens to just capture what they’re doing and where they’re at right now.”
Asked by the Refugee Empowerment Center to take photos of local refugee communities, he’s integrated those images, along with pictures of social justice activism, into the project.
“It’s personally gratifying to be able to do work that I love,” Limoges said.
It’s even better when it resonates with others.
He said he intends to share his work in a gallery show.
Visit stayhomewavehi.com for more information.
This article was printed in the September 2020 edition of Omaha Magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
