Two Years Ago Today

Two years ago today, March 11, 2020, I posted the following to the NYC Photo Community Instagram account:

I’m not only a passionate photographer, but I’m passionate about the idea that in-person community is one of the secrets to thriving in any creative endeavor, such as photography.  We need each other, and together we make each other better.  So it pains me to say this, but I believe the best way I can support this community through this Coronavirus situation is to suspend promoting photo gatherings and photo events for the time being.  I trust the health experts who say the smartest way to avoid a bad outcome for our country, and those most at risk from this virus, is to hold off on non-essential gatherings and travel until we have more information, and our health system gets more prepared for the contingencies it’s already facing….Hopefully, we’ll have a better handle on the situation soon, and I can resume full operations.

I had no idea what was coming and expected things would return to normal in a month or two at most.

I started the NYC Photo Community in September of 2019, only a few months before, specifically as a way to share and promote in-person photo events around the city. My idea was to intentionally avoid online community elements in favor of simply encouraging people to get out of the house and meet fellow photographers and photography enthusiasts at photo talks, exhibitions, and meet-ups around the city. 

But then the world changed and kept changing, one dramatic event after another. 

Covid-19 began its rapid spread across the country and around the world leading to lockdowns and massive disruption of work and schools and everyday life. George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis sparking worldwide Black Lives Matter protests and social action. Ruth Bader Ginsburg died allowing Donald Trump the opportunity to appoint a third supreme court justice. Biden defeated Donald Trump in the presidential election. Effective vaccines began rolling out across the country. Insurrectionists stormed the Capitol in an attempt to prevent Biden from taking power. Coronavirus variants spread across the country. Vaccine and mask protests spread across the country. The Taliban reclaimed power in Afghanistan following the chaotic US withdrawal from our longest war. Migrants fleeing a variety of threats continued to seek safe havens around the world. Cryptocurrencies become a trillion-dollar-plus unregulated market for speculation. Climate change continues to exacerbate floods, fires, and extreme weather events in localities around the world. 

And now here we are two years on, faced with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to annex its territory - a conflict the rest of the world can’t counter directly for fear of sparking a wider war or nuclear conflict.

It’s been a lot.

While we’ve all been directly impacted, the chaotic events of the last couple of years have been experienced in very different ways by different people depending on their circumstances. Healthcare and other essential workers found themselves on the front lines overnight with all of the danger, risk, and sacrifice that entailed whether they were a doctor or a cashier at a grocery store. Many people got sick, and many still struggle with long Covid symptoms. Millions of people lost loved ones. Some folks experienced tragedies or setbacks that would have been difficult any year but were particularly difficult in the midst of a pandemic.

The pain and reckoning and protests that followed George Floyd’s murder have rippled through our society in ways that will shape our country for decades.

I think about the classic movie Koyaanisqatsi from the early 1980s that explored the dramatic and consequential effects of man and technology on the natural environment. The title of the film ‘Koyaanisqatsi,’ is a Hopi word that translates as “Life out of balance.” If life was out of balance in the early 1980s, it feels like it’s going completely off the rails right now. 

Toni Morrison wrote an essay about working in difficult times when so much of the world felt broken,

“This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.

I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence. Like failure, chaos contains information that can lead to knowledge — even wisdom. Like art.”

This editor’s note might read a little disjointed and all over the place because that’s an accurate reflection of how I feel almost every day these days, but Toni Morrison’s words hit the nail right on the head and perfectly express how I feel about the NYC Photo Community and what you all have meant to me during these past two chaotic years.

You and your work have been an enormous healing inspiration to me and so many others. In the beauty and creativity and vulnerability and pain and struggle you’ve shared in your photographs, you’ve helped to show us all that there is still so much that is so good in the world if you know where to look.

Thanks for being part of this wild ride, and I’ll see you all next week.

peace and love,

James Prochnik | The NYC Photo Community | Issue 107 | March 11 - March 18

Want to help out Ukraine? Here are some suggestions from NPR.