photo by: Mike Yoder

Inspired by walks with his new dog Tulu, left, Mike Yoder gathered a collection of photographs through the pandemic. A sculpture by Lawrence artist Dave Van Hee, right, also inspired the cover of "My Dog Prefers Me in a Mask", a book of 100 photographs through the pandemic years.

There can be symmetry in two unrelated images. Whether visual or thematic, something connects them across place and time.

That’s what longtime Lawrence photojournalist Mike Yoder would ultimately find when editing photos taken on walks with his dog during what was, in more ways than one, a very disordered time.

During a 2.5-year period that spanned the COVID-19 pandemic, the murder of George Floyd and the attack on the U.S. Capitol, Yoder captured about 2,000 photographs. In contrast to event-driven professional photography assignments, these photos were spontaneous, initially guided only by what made him pause as he walked his dog Tulu.

“From there, it just became a collection of wherever I lingered or stopped long enough to get a photograph,” Yoder said. “So that was kind of the spark.”

photo by: Mike Yoder

Two pages from Lawrence photojournalist Mike Yoder’s book “My Dog Prefers Me in a Mask: Pandemic Mementos & the Serendipity of Photographs”

He stopped during the walks that fanned out from his East Lawrence home, on bike rides past the empty movie theater, as he drove down Kansas interstates for socially distanced visits at his father’s nursing home. The resulting book, “My Dog Prefers Me in a Mask: Pandemic Mementos & the Serendipity of Photographs,” includes 100 of the photos Yoder took during that time. The collection, most of which is presented in what the book calls unintended pairs, offers “visual interpretations of this uncertain time.”

Initially, Yoder said he envisioned presenting the photos in chronological order. However, when he sat down to start editing the collection, he started to see relationships between some of the images. He said some were purely structural or visual, clear for the eye to see, while others were thematic, something he saw that he wasn’t always sure others would see the same way.

“I started noticing photographs from distant places and distant times kind of mimicked each other,” Yoder said. “They had similarities, so I can put them side by side and create what I call visual puns.”

photo by: Mike Yoder

Two pages from Lawrence photojournalist Mike Yoder’s book “My Dog Prefers Me in a Mask: Pandemic Mementos & the Serendipity of Photographs”

The first pair of photographs consists of two images of pavement. The first shows stenciled lettering, the words “Line starts here” in sky-blue spray paint with a bold red X underneath, that was taken outside the Lawrence Public Library in July 2020. The second is an East Lawrence sidewalk covered in a thin layer of snow that’s imprinted with the cross-hatched footprints of a bird and the patterned sole of a person’s shoe that was taken in January 2022.

Yoder said one of his favorite pairings is one of the most unexpected. He said when editing photographs of a soil collection ceremony to remember the lynching of three Black men near downtown Lawrence in 1882, he was struck by the similarities between the scene and “The Last Supper” by Leonardo da Vinci. Each features similar colors and a long table with about a dozen figures; however, in the collection ceremony the position of Christ is taken by a large bouquet of sunflowers.

“I realized that there was a structural similarity with both of them, and even down to the positions of the people in some ways,” Yoder said.

photo by: Mike Yoder

A page from Lawrence photojournalist Mike Yoder’s book “My Dog Prefers Me in a Mask: Pandemic Mementos & the Serendipity of Photographs”

photo by: Mike Yoder

Two pages from Lawrence photojournalist Mike Yoder’s book “My Dog Prefers Me in a Mask: Pandemic Mementos & the Serendipity of Photographs”

Another pairing includes a photo of Yoder and a photo of his neighbor, both appearing contemplative in their yards with their backs to the camera. Other pairings have a bit of irony or levity, such as a street art poster that reads “The pen is mightier than the tweet,” paired with a container at a doctor’s office labeled with a sticky note that reads, “Dirty pens here.”

Lawrence muralist Dave Loewenstein, who also lived in East Lawrence during the pandemic and made that and other posters, said he found the book poignant in the way it captured tragedy and doubt among humor and the everyday. After all, he said, that’s what makes up life. He said he thinks the collection has resonance today that will only increase when looked back on in 10 or 20 years.

“I think it’s rare that we see a glimpse of ourselves and our city in this way,” Loewenstein said. “Although it spanned a period of real difficulty and tragedy, Mike has the ability to capture not just the pathos and the conflict, but the humor and humanity in those very difficult two years.”

The photos also speak to political and social issues. One image shows a public health poster from January 2022 of the correct way to wear a mask, while its counterpart shows a New Yorker magazine cover illustration from March 2020 that depicts former President Donald Trump with a mask over his eyes. Another shows movie poster display cases at Regal Southwind Theater, empty except for a red-topped notice, alongside a concert announcement board at the Granada filled with printouts that read “Black Lives Matter.”

photo by: Mike Yoder

Two pages from Lawrence photojournalist Mike Yoder’s book “My Dog Prefers Me in a Mask: Pandemic Mementos & the Serendipity of Photographs”

photo by: Mike Yoder

These photos of masks are from Lawrence photojournalist Mike Yoder’s book “My Dog Prefers Me in a Mask: Pandemic Mementos & the Serendipity of Photographs”

Loewenstein also pointed to another image, a collage of discarded masks — ranging from a flower-print mask dropped in the grass to a disposable mask caught up in an orange construction safety fence — that to him communicated another message.

“Visually, they’re interesting because they have all these different compositions and colors, but I think they also say something else,” he said. “They speak to the individuality and the personal nature of the pandemic for all of us, you know. That it was different for everybody.”

In addition to photos, the book includes some brief writings. They include a poem by Yoder’s wife, Karen Seibel, about the cleaning routine of a grocery store employee and a note alongside a portrait of Yoder’s dad. He is pictured sitting outside his nursing home on a visit day, with a neck gaiter covering the lower half of his face and large sunglasses over his eyes. Yoder writes that even in the isolation of lockdowns, his dad seldom complained, saying to him, “I search for the meaningful in each day.”

In a sense, the photo collection ended up doing the same — finding resonance among the everyday moments, amid the difficult era of the pandemic. Yoder writes in the book’s afterword that he stopped taking photographs for the collection about the same time his dad died, at the age of 93 in September 2022. The book is dedicated to him.

Yoder said though there were times he doubted the atypical format of the pairings, he had fun with the project and was glad he pushed through that doubt.

“If only a handful of people enjoy it or dozens buy it, it was something I had to do,” he said. “And I felt really good about it when it was finished.”

Yoder served as the chief photographer for the Lawrence Journal-World for 32 years. His photos have earned honors from the National Press Photographers Association, Kansas Press Association and the Associated Press. “My Dog Prefers Me in a Mask” is for sale at The Raven Book Store and available for checkout at the Lawrence Public Library.

photo by: Mike Yoder

Two pages from Lawrence photojournalist Mike Yoder’s book “My Dog Prefers Me in a Mask: Pandemic Mementos & the Serendipity of Photographs”