Years after seeing his grandparents struggle with different forms of dementia, Leyden native Joe Wallace decided to use photography to help him process the experience.

The result, a portrait series called “The Day After Yesterday,” showcases Massachusetts residents living with dementia. The photography exhibit is on display at the Greenfield Public Library through September, with a reception planned for Monday, Sept. 16, at 6:30 p.m.

Wallace started working on the series in 2017.

“I started working on the project many years after, I think as a way of metabolizing, or processing, my own experience with different forms of dementia and its impact on me, my family, my community,” Wallace said. “And my desire to try to take my own experience and try to make something positive out of it.”

The exhibit’s title came to Wallace while he was interviewing one of his photography subjects, who accidentally referred to today as “the day after yesterday” before his child corrected him.

“I thought it was a funny and loving anecdote,” Wallace said. “But it was also a nice metaphor for some of the subjects that came up over and over again, which is: nothing matters beyond what is happening right now.”

Dementia forces those struggling with the disease to live in the present, but staying present is also required of those caring for people with dementia, Wallace explained.

“I thought a way to express how hard it can be to be present is the verbal complexity of … the day after yesterday, which is today,” he said.

It was important to Wallace to establish trust with his subjects before photographing them, so he conducted extensive interviews beforehand.

“Trust is hard to come by when you talk about such a sensitive subject, so I spent many hours with most people before I ever took a picture,” he recounted. “And that bond, and that trust, helped me get an authentic gesture, expression from my subjects. So I carefully photographed everyone to show their vulnerability, but also their dignity, their pride, their courage.”

Wallace started by photographing people he knew with dementia, beginning at Charlene Manor Extended Care in Greenfield, where his grandmother lived before her death. Because of the familial connection, the residents were already familiar with him, Wallace said, and thus more inclined to trust him.

Branching out from there, he photographed residents at South Cove Manor in Quincy where his mother-in-law was living. The nursing home has a large Chinese population, and Wallace said capturing the diversity of those living with dementia was crucial to his project. He also worked with public agencies, such as La Alianza Hispana in Boston.

“I wanted someone to come in the room at the exhibit, or open the book, and see somebody who either looked like them or had a story that they had a relation to so people would stay, so people would say, ‘This is for me, I wanna read more, I wanna look at more pictures, I wanna dig in.’ Because if people don’t see themselves represented, then they’ll just walk away.”

Wallace added that it was important to him to capture a diversity of ages, too. He emphasized that dementia is not just a disease suffered by older adults — his youngest subject is 29 years old and has a rare genetic mutation.

‘Remnants’

With a second local photography exhibit, Wallace transitioned from focusing on people to places. “Remnants,” on display in the Great Hall at the Great Falls Discovery Center in Turners Falls through July 28, highlights abandoned mill buildings in the village.

Having grown up in Franklin County, Wallace, who now lives in Boston, was drawn to historic mill buildings as a child.

“I remember … being fascinated by the buildings along the canal … with general 19th-century industrial architecture and history,” he said.

Wallace said he was particularly drawn to the buildings in Turners Falls because the town had not been able to convert them into other uses, as has been done in other Massachusetts municipalities.

“The empty ones always seem to have more intrigue to me,” he explained, “to tell a story that sort of left something to the viewer.”

There will be a reception for “Remnants” on Sunday, July 14, from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Great Falls Discovery Center. Starting at 1:30 p.m., Wallace will discuss his photography and Montague Town Administrator Walter Ramsey will talk about the history and future of the mill buildings.

“The stories I imagined taking place there, both in its heyday when they were working mills, but also when they were mixed use, when they closed … that was really the genesis of the title, ‘Remnants,’” Wallace noted. “What are the stories told by what’s left behind?”