The Cooper Family Falling Body Photo

In December of 1980, a few days after the killing of John Lennon, I had a dream. In this dream I saw a variety of scenes with children in them; one was a birthday party with sniper scope cross hairs over the faces of the children. Another was a playground with a mushroom cloud on the horizon (an image that was in the 1991 Terminator 2 movie). The dream had a soundtrack. Pat Benatar’s Hell is for Children. (I don’t think I’ve heard it since.)

After that dream I collected a large number of family snapshot negatives and got to work. The results were a series of images where people in ordinary situations were seemingly oblivious to their looming fate.

In May of 2015 I was shocked when I discovered that this image was all over the freakin’ internet. It had somehow become a meme. Strange world.

Just another Pleasant Valley Sunday.