If you were clutching the pages of the New York Times Magazine's education issue this week or racking up screen time reading it online to learn about what's going on in schools and homes amid the pandemic across the U.S., you might have seen some local photography. The deceptively soothing cover image of a child at a backyard desk, as well as a few inside photos, is by Humboldt State University art department's lecturer Dave Woody. The department's Instagram shared the image yesterday.


Woody, who hails from Colorado, teaches photography and is himself experiencing the hybrid conditions of teaching one online class and two in-person classes. "It's a treat to teach those students at HSU," he says. "They're great."

The cover shot of  the backyard remote learning setup of a Trinidad Elementary School student is one of four split-run covers for this week's issue. "I was contacted by the Times a few weeks ago to photograph the first day of school," he says. Instructions were loose and a friend connected him to a handful of school administrators, who put him in touch will parents willing to participate. In the end, he submitted photos from Laurel Tree Charter School, Trinidad Elementary School, Winship Middle School, Lafayette Elementary School, and Maple Creek Elementary School, with little idea which one might go where in the magazine.

Editors at the Times determined no one photo could speak to the myriad approaches schools and families are adopting, hence the split run. You can watch the "Behind the Cover" video about the making of the issue here. And you can see more of Woody's work on his website, here, including his series of art school portraits.