Nitya Kansal (left) and her husband, Arvind Kansal (right), pose in front of their home in Cupertino, Calif. Art inputs by Nitya Kansal/Ashima Yadava hide caption Ashima Yadava's project Front Yard captures a moment in time where we all were seeking connection. In 2020, the pandemic gave Yadava the time to reflect, and so she looked to photography.
She turned to her community, reaching out to her entire network, wanting to make portraits of them from their front yards, at a safe six-foot distance. "I, just on a whim, sent an email to my entire network of neighbors and friends in the area, saying, 'I want to record this time that we're in. Can I please make a portrait of you?' " Yadava recalls.
"And because we had to keep a distance, I was, like, 'I'll do it across the street from your house, so can it be in your front yard?' And the first set of responses were brilliant. People were, like, 'Oh, yeah! We haven't seen a person in a month! Please, come on over!' " Hamida Bano (right) and her husband, Dr. Anil Chopra (left), with their daughter, Nasreen Chopra (center), in their Orinda, Calif.
, home in April 2020. Ashima Yadava hide caption Sunitha Seshadri (left), an engineer by profession, with her daughter, Shriya, her son, Veer (right), and her husband, Harshit Chuttani (center), outside their Campbell, Calif., home.
Art inputs by Sunitha Seshadri/Ashima Yadava hide caption Sonya Pelia (right), her husband Mathew Lutzker (left) and their daughter Jasleen Pelia-Lutzker in Menl.
