A shadow of hunger looms over the United States. In the pandemic economy, nearly one in eight households doesn’t have enough to eat. The lockdown, with its epic lines at food banks, has revealed what was hidden in plain sight: that the struggle to make food last long enough, and to get food that’s healthful — what experts call ‘food insecurity’ — is a persistent one for millions of Americans.

This weekend, the entire issue of The New York Times Magazine is devoted to the topic of families and food insecurity, the lack of consistent access to healthy meals that affects millions in America. The issue features 18 images by the photographer Brenda Ann Kenneally, who, in the spirit of Dorothea Lange’s Dust Bowl journeys, took a 92-day trip from New York to California in a camper to document those who were struggling. The pictures are part of a collaboration between the magazine and the National desk that includes an online multimedia package.

Artist Brenda Ann Kenneally knows how the game is played better than most, and uses her knowledge and wisdom expose the truth — rather than perpetuate the lies told and sold. In 2002, she and author Adrian Nicole LeBlanc began collaborating on a magazine assignment in Troy, New York, a once-thriving city whose fortunes have gone dark.

Brenda Ann Kenneally takes photographs, but to call her a photographer isn’t quite accurate. She prefers the term “digital folk artist,” and when you hear how she interacts with her subjects—families living below the poverty line in Troy, New York—and tells their stories, it seems an apt description

While she still focuses on the same square block in Bushwick, her subject matter has started to change in the last couple of years — along with the neighborhood.