'A Family Like Ours': Portraits of Gay Fatherhood

A new book of photography features the intimate moments of queer dads in America.

When Bart Heynen showed up at a Brooklyn home of a family he hoped to photograph in 2015, his subjects weren’t quite ready. One dad was busy finishing some ironing and the other was cleaning the house, newborn son in arms.

The scene struck Mr. Heynen, himself a father of two sons, as profoundly normal. “They just looked like any other parents that love their children,” he said.

The family was the first of many Mr. Heynen planned to photograph for a book of photography featuring gay fathers and their children. His original idea was for each family to pose on the corner of their block to illustrate that, “See? We exist all over the city,” he said. But after the Brooklyn shoot, he changed the concept to focus on fathers in the middle of their day-to-day realities. He spent the next four years with 40 families across the country, compiling their quiet moments into his recently-released book, “Dads.” >>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/16/well/family/gay-fatherhood-photos.html?