Portraits of People’s Lives by Looking Inside Their Refrigerators
Photographer Mark Menjivar captured some interesting portraits of people across the United States by photographing the insides of their fridges. He spent three years travelling the country, gathering individual stories from people, and assembling the unique portraits in his project, titled “You Are What You Eat“.
School Crossing Guard/Nursing Home Assistant | Austin, TX | 6-Person Household | Parents and 3 adult children live in an efficiency apartment.
Here are some more photos from the project, along with their captions:
Bar Tender | San Antonio, TX | 1-Person Household | Goes to sleep at 8AM and wakes up at 4PM daily.
Carpenter/Photographer | San Antonio, TX | 3-Person Household | 12 Point Buck shot on family property.
Midwife/Middle School Science Teacher | San Antonio, TX | 3-Person Household (including dog) | First week after deciding to eat all local produce.
Retired High School Principal | Pottstown, PA | 3-Person Household | Is living with Type 2 diabetes.
In the project’s statement, Menjivar writes,
An intense curiosity and questions about stewardship led me to begin to make these unconventional portraits. A refrigerator is both a private and a shared space. One person likened the question, “May I photograph the interior of your fridge?” to asking someone to pose nude for the camera.
Each fridge is photographed “as is”. Nothing added, nothing taken away.
These are portraits of the rich and the poor. Vegetarians, Republicans, members of the NRA, those left out, the under appreciated, former soldiers in Hitler’s SS, dreamers, and so much more. We never know the full story of one’s life.
My hope is that we will think deeply about how we care.
How we care for our bodies. How we care for others. And how we care for the land.
You can check out the rest of the photographs here.
Image credits: Photographs by Mark Menjivar and used with permission