Welcome to The Villages! Had the pleasure of working on this story with Jillian Kumagai - a stellar photo editor at ProPublica, a stellar publication. From the initial phone call I knew we were on the same page, we had seen Villages coverage before and didn’t want to jump into the same visual tropes (keep the pickleball and golf carts to a minimum). We wanted to photograph Villagers with dignity while still acknowledging the quirks of their community and lifestyle.

The story is about healthcare, the most intimate issue in today’s political zeitgeist, so I wanted the photos to express that tenderness. I focused on quiet portraits in the home, poignant details and sparse environmental scenes. The Villages is an insular community, and can feel isolating regardless of its 50,000 residents and the vast land it occupies - keeping the photos tight and constrained to illustrate that.

I worked with superstar reporter Akilah Johnson, an alumni of the Globe’s Spotlight team but new to the healthcare beat, and we explored the Villages healthcare system on the ground together. Wandering the Disneyesque streets we searched for Villagers that would talk to us about healthcare. If they were open to that, I asked if they would let me come over to photograph them at home. I didn’t have much interest making portraits on the street, and a few kind people invited us over. We did that for two days and packed it up! Then we heard Trump was coming to The Villages to talk about Medicare.

The Villages are overwhelmingly white, Republican and Trump fans. They voted for him in droves - over 80% of Villagers checked his name in 2016. It made sense he would come and rally them now that our two-year election cycle was up and running again. We decided it would be the perfect cherry on top for visuals. The story was running that day, so they would mostly be used for social. Regardless, I was excited to photograph on the fringes and not be super worried about getting the podium shots or making a deadline.

Anyway I’ve been tinkering with this post for a while and I don’t really have much to say. Mostly I’m super grateful to Jillian for the call (and being as excited as I was) and Akilah for being my reporting/lunch partner. Captions seemed like overkill but I wanted to add some blurbs for contex - I hope the photos will speak for themselves.

I also want to start working with editing/layouts more on here (and posting work in general). Keep an eye on my Instagram for a newsletter sign up and for updates on new posts.

Thanks for looking.