FOCUS

A COMPILATION OF NEWS, TECH AND ENTERTAINMENT

#RFPOTD BACKSTORY

The New American Gothic

BY JACQUELINE TOBIN

Taken during the wedding of Katie and Curtis Ferland at Chateau St. Jean in Kenwood, California, last October, this image went viral after photographer Karna Roa posted it on Facebook. ( Rangefinder then ran it as part of its Photo of the Day series online.)

Taken by Roa in the style of the 1930s painting American Gothic by Grant Wood, she wondered, as the bride and groom stood in the vineyard donning respirator masks, if this was the new normal for California wine country in 2019.

“I pulled out the one image of the couple in the masks because I thought it was very relevant, since the Kincade wildfires in California were still in full force,” she explains. She posted it on her personal Facebook page and shortly after, with a change in Roa’s privacy setting to public, the image took off, going international very quickly.

“It was a completely overwhelming experience,” she says. “One of the more incredible ways the image was shown was in The Guardian ’s Pictures of the Year for 2019.”

+ kmrphotography.com