Even though it was less than a year ago, Danielle St. Laurent’s series of family portraits brings me back to a moment in time that feels so removed from now. Nothing terrible happened to me in March 2020, apart from leaving school and my friends, but these photographs remind me of the sense of dread that hung around every corner. Like the Austins, I spent more time with my family than I ever had. My mom imposed weekly family movie nights, which everyone soon resented. Long walks through the park became my only respite. Rather than people, the river and trees were the friends with whom I shared every new memory. I would often go to the park just to dance because my room felt like a suffocating coffin. In The Austin Family, the duality of the people inside and the reflection of the trees from outside recalls exactly those feelings I experienced at the beginning of this now-familiar global pandemic.