Extra Ordinary

Photographer Dona Schwartz’s portrayals of day-to-day life are anything but average.

As an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota, Donna Schwartz seldom produces imagery solely for art’s sake.

Image credit: Tate Carlson

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They say the third time’s a charm, but Dona Schwartz refused to rely on mere luck when culling photos for her 2011 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize submission. After coming painstakingly close to qualifying for the esteemed award in 2007 and 2010, the Minneapolis-based photographer decided to play to her audience a bit.

“You guys like dead animals? I’ll give you dead animals,” Schwartz jokes while pointing out the 2010 winner, David Chancellor’s “Huntress With Buck,” which features a teenage girl clutching an antelope carcass. While Schwartz’s “Christina and Mark, 14 Months” (pictured opposite) deals with decidedly different subject matter, she says she figured the mounted deer bust in the photo’s background couldn’t hurt her chances.

More than 2,500 applicants sought the honor of being invited to the Taylor Wessing award ceremony—internationally recognized as one of the world’s premier photographic competitions—at London’s National Portrait Gallery last November. Among the five shortlisted was 56-year-old Schwartz, who took third place and a £1,500 (about $2,300) prize for her curious rendering of a middle-aged couple from Welch, Minn.

As an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota, Schwartz seldom produces imagery solely for art’s sake. She marries photography with her passion for social science and ethnography—disciplines on which she focused while earning her Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania. Schwartz’s measured process results in thought-provoking collections like her “On the Nest” series—a two-part project juxtaposing expectant couples with empty-nesters (including the titular couple in “Christina and Mark”).

Schwartz was inspired to explore these two familial themes in 2006 while working on her book In the Kitchen, a photographic study featuring the teenaged kids in her Brady Bunch-esque family (Schwartz and her partner, Ken, have three children apiece) and their interaction in what she calls the “nerve center” of her East Calhoun home.

“It was just one of those days where I was so sick of teenagers.” Schwartz sighs. “My thinking was that there are transitions in adults’ lives too, and [that] somebody ought to pay attention to them for a change.”

Schwartz decided to focus her lens on soon-to-be parents and the spaces they prepare for their offspring. “There are moments in life where you’re taking this huge step,” she explains. “You’re on the threshold between one identity, one status, one everyday life circumstance and another—but it hasn’t quite sunk in yet. This in-between moment, to me, was very interesting.”

In “On the Nest” Schwartz covers an expansive cross-section of expectant parents, including same-sex, interracial and military couples (see “Andrea and Brad, 16 Days,” featured in the 2010 Taylor Wessing exhibition, at left) before casting her gaze on those who have come out the other side of parenthood. Here, Schwartz finds endless scenarios, as some subjects have transformed their recently vacated real estate into offices, exercise rooms and guest bedrooms, while others, as in “Christina and Mark,” have left their departed children’s spaces virtually untouched.

Schwartz attributes this variety to the fact that empty-nesters, for the first time in years, find themselves without a clear script to follow. “When a baby is about to be born you make a nursery, you have a baby shower, you do things that ease you into that transition,” she says. “For empty-nesters it’s an equally dramatic transition in many respects, but there isn’t a way we celebrate it. I think people are pretty conscious and aware, but it’s a different kind of awareness. Maybe not nearly as happy an awareness, because it means you’re older and you start counting how many years of productivity you have left.”

To date, Schwartz has amassed more than 80 images for “On the Nest,” and she’s still seeking more. In anticipation of a September sabbatical, she aims to complete the project this year, with an exhibition and book to follow. Fittingly, Schwartz—a recent empty-nester herself—plans for the series to culminate in a self-portrait. “We’re kind of going off into this sunset together,” she says.

+ Those interested in being photographed for “On the Nest” may contact Schwartz at dona@umn.edu; visit donaschwartz.com for more information.