2024:Celebrating the New Year. Taken at Gideon Wells on Lincoln and Sunnyside in Chicago.
Year's end - and photograph #365 (It was a leap year!). For me, this was a great year filled with joy, adventure and activism. So what better photo to end the year with was our celebrating with friends at Gideon Wells. Mony returned this afternoon from a trip to the border helping a friend with an immigration matter before the window closes in January. Before going to dinner, we met up with friends for a beer , music and conversation about politics, the holidays, and birds! For the world –in 2024, there was not so much that was good. And, since November 5th, there is this overarching gloom for what is to come in 2025, which we will meet with determination, resilience, resistance, and community. In the past year, I hope that I captured some of all of that in these photos that I shared – photos of the people and events and scenes that crossed my path. If I am fortunate, I hope to do this again --maybe in another four years, maybe sooner. In the meantime, I will post here when I have photos and stories to share. Since my camera is always with me, and this will be an eventful year, I am sure I will be back soon.
2020: Year end. Taken at Lawrence and Lake Michigan in Chicago. It only seems fitting that I am ending this year kind of like I started it -- with a walk at the Lake. However, nothing about this year is what I could have imagined on January 1st. For one thing -- the best thing -- I am taking this walk with Mony. It is also fitting that there are no people or cars in the photo since you still cannot drive into the park east of LSD because of COVID. To access the Lake you have to park and walk. So while I never took a lot of photos this year that showed the absence of people -- this one does. Still the Lake is there, and there were others out walking (although wearing masks), and the geese are still flying over the Lake just like a year ago. 2020 will be a year that will be remembered -- but what happens next year and those that follow will determine how. For now this project is coming to an end. As always, I look forward to taking my camera everywhere and taking photos, but not one every day. 2018: Carry on. Taken on Lincoln Ave just north of Leland in Chicago. The day was kind of like the year: gray, gloomy, cold and wet -- rather depressing. But we do “carry on” to 2019. I am ready for this project to end, but I look forward to knew, meaningful photography projects in the New Year. 2016:Time for Peace and the end to violence. Taken on Michigan Ave. just north of the River in Chicago. There was a march in Michigan Avenue to call for peace and an end to violence in the City. It also marked the more than 750 people who were killed in Chicago in 2016 as a result of gun violence. There was a cross for each person killed. Some were carried by friends and family of those who lost their loves and others were carried by strangers -- people like me. We should not need to be reminded that this is not a South side problem, not a West side problem, but a Chicago problem. A problem caused by too many guns, too much poverty and racism, too few jobs and too little hope. It is hard to imagine 2017 being anything but worse.2012: Unloading soda. Taken on Lawrence and Whipple
