Back in California / Reflection on a Historic Photograph of this Moment

I’m back in California. It has been disorienting to move back, adjust to both a nine-hour difference in time zones, and the new normal of living with lockdown in a town I had never really been familiar with, despite bordering the town where I grew up. So I wanted to share just a few of the photos from this series, and put into text the emotions I had during the process. I hope to create a more robust portfolio of this work later. For now, I want to focus on texture.

Plan growing on the sidewalk in Pleasanton, CA

Jetlag does a lot of things to the human body. It’s a delightful excuse to be lazy, and a frustrating impediment to doing the fun things like paying attention to videos and Netflix shows. One of the few things that kept me sane were morning walks. I would leave the house just as the sun rose, or even before, to go as far as I felt I could. The first morning, it was a mile. Than an extra half mile. Then two. Then five. The most I walked was seven miles in a day. And during that time, I felt more connected with the distance it takes to travel in this suburban landscape, and the exotic textures of the overlooked surfaces. This was exaggerated with the early morning light, and something I truly appreciated as a pedestrian in a town defined by car culture.

Moon-like earth exaggerated by early morning light, Dublin CA

It’s strange to publish this reflection now, when the centuries long crisis of race in America has been thrust to the center of conversation like never before in my lifetime, following the murder of George Floyd by the police. I’ve always struggled with why my artwork never matches the historic moment of the country. I feel resolved about this now, though.That’s how history happens. It’s rarely in front of you, rarely obvious. I think too often I focused on the bombs in history, when the real stories are nothing like an explosion. It’s all narrative, promises, rhetoric, stories told after the matter. Even in these unique moments, the meaning remains abstract. It’s incapable of being captured. It does not render a landscape unrecognizable. The trees still bristle in the wind. The true revolution happens over time, somewhere else. The revolution will not be televised, but the systems and normalities that cause this pain will continue to be consecrated into the built environment.

USA Marker, a helpful reminder since I had just returned from Asia

I am growing appreciative of why it’s important that people in power say the quiet part out loud. Why it’s not good enough for activists to be the only one saying these things. It is because the people in power are the ones who actually make change, and because their voice can serve as a credible addendum to the toxic lies and misinformation coming from the Trump Administration. In the history of photography, it’s rare that the most significant images are taken by obscure image makers. It’s rare that the dude who was super into photography but had no network or career path could take one lasting image to redefine the narrative. I think about these moments, and how I wish I could capture them. But of course, my perspective is not the most important. It’s the press photographers who need to be there. If I were to become one, that’d be great, but as I am now, there is no value to rushing to protests for some hope of fame. Instead, I want to represent what I do best, and to show you what really matters to me. The little things. The small cracks and grass that make up the tapestry of the suburban landscape.

Troops on the Lincoln Memorial, image by Martha Raddatz

There are images like this one, taken by Martha Raddatz, the ABC News Chief Global Affairs Correspondent. The image is appropriately captioned, “Your Lincoln Memorial this evening.” Storm troopers. Faces covered with masks and sunglasses, stand side by side in a display of force against the people. And there they stood, on the very steps where Martin Luther King Jr., then the most hated public figure in America, told the world that he had a dream that his children could live in a peaceful world. When viewed along images of police brutality against protesters and journalists(TW), this image is devastating.

This image also makes me think of an interview with Bernhard Leitner and Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect. Leitner commented to Speer, saying, “but you also used soldiers as a kind of sculptural medium,” to which Speer replied, “That was my invention-it was very hard-the military were horrified because there was nothing in their rule books to cover it…. It was actually more like accentuating the architecture, the towers...intensifying the architecture.” The very image of these soldiers is a step into an authoritarian America.

2020 Presidential sign on a truck along Highland Road, CA

Unfortunately, I do not know how to respond adequately other than to highlight and write this a reference for myself. This regression into authoritarianism. Because African Americans are asking to be treated as equal. A tall order given the current conditions, but still so basic. It happens slowly, then all at once. People in power benefited, the risks were not believed, and so here we are. I wonder if this is tied in with denial about the risk of climate change. If you can find yourself in denial about the risk of one forecasted disaster, why not deny the others?

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