During the recent pandemic, it was easy to get overwhelmed by the dullness of life. Even as we have re-emerged, it’s been just as easy to take the simple, everyday things for granted. Whether it’s a bird taking flight, a staircase, or looking up at the sky, Charles Yang and Lesley Ackman dare those who would look at the everyday, mundane, quotidian world around them to see beauty, even if for just a moment.

Charles Yang
*Frosty Morning Rush*
photograph

“While we socially distanced from people, we had a chance to slow down and

appreciate the nature around us. Things that we had overlooked before were

viewed in a new light. Parks and forests became a welcome respite from the strange new world that we were living in. A safe environment to capture the beauty of nature,” said Lesley Ackman and Charles Yang. This comes out in their work. Through cityscapes, back alleys, to nature and travel, Charles Yang and Lesley Ackman help you to take that necessary pause to take in the fascination of what might be considered “dull” in the immediate moment.

Leslie Ackman
*Age of Innocence*
photograph

Some of their most striking images bring you into a pause: a moment in which you would typically ignore what’s going on around you. Lesley Ackman’s “Age of Innocence” captures that very moment. A young child is sitting at a table, her feet just hovering above the ground, admiring her flowers. But what it captures in that moment, in that pause, is her gaze at her flowers, the

loving care she is providing, and the plans she is making for them. Will she give them to a parent? Maybe a friend? Will she keep them for herself to make her room a little brighter? The possibilities seem endless as you observe her delicately handling her flowers.

Leslie Ackman
*Fallen Angel*
*photograph*

There is also Fallen Angel, which takes a simple marble set of stairs that could

be in a train station or government building. One could just see a set of stairs, but in this instance, the picture taken from above features a ballerina presented as the fallen angel bringing new light and a true reimagining of the stairs.

Charles Yang
*Alone and Cold*
photograph

I also think of Charles Yang’s striking images like Alone and Cold, which capture the water's dark and coldish blue tones as they surround a single massive stone. The ripples of the water shine forth reflecting the ominous branches of the trees surrounding this body of water.

There is also Yang’s mind-bending black-and-white image titled No Room Left. This photograph is striking, with forbidding clouds at the heart of the image that makes you feel like you’re in a scene from the movie Inception. “The photographer, who, by definition, is apart, can fix our daily life so that the fragility of a second can last as long as your gaze lingers, and your memory can hold. We can make the fine and quotidian art of being human a bit more special than every day,” said Julianne Dixon-Yang.

See Reimagining the Quotidian in the Underground Gallery for the months of July and August.