Conceptual nominee

You can’t stop a pandemic from impacting you, any more than you could stop a tsunami from sweeping you up in its surge. For me, it has certainly impacted me and my art. I have felt every emotion over the past year fiercely, whether loneliness, longing, love, or loss. These things were always present in my work but they feel palpable now in everything I undertake. Working in self portrait and creating these images while pandemic life threatened to swallow me whole provided a refuge, a place to live in my emotions, and a way to ultimately move forward.

Barb McKinney is a fine art photographer based in Dallas, Texas focusing on conceptual and book cover photography. She collects and freezes beautiful moments and scenes in an effort to reconcile the beauty of life with its ephemerality. These little pieces tell the big stories: those of love, spirituality, the beauty of nature, and what happens when we neglect those things.
In 2020 Barb's piece "Attention Must be Paid" was selected by Aline Smithson for the Juror's Award in PhotoPlace Gallery's juried exhibition "Portraits of Self-Isolation."