In this tender portrayal, a toddler daughter seems to be protecting her father with her tiny right hand, its palm facing outward and covering his heart. Artist Larry Cook, who is based in Washington, D.C., and is on the faculty at Howard University, makes work that utilizes his own experiences as source material and inspiration.

In his Fatherhood series, Cook uses portraiture to “document the vulnerability and strength of everyday fathers. The subjects are family members, close friends, and father-like figures of my childhood situated before the camera as a way to reconstruct the gaps within my own father’s presence. I’m interested in exploring the complexities of the black male experience while deconstructing my own identity.”