A.D. 2009 in photographic review

January: I was still in Seattle, but at that point I was begin­ning to see that I had to leave soon or else face irre­cov­er­able mental strain. Nevertheless, it was a creat­ive time for me person­ally — it really wasn’t so bad being unem­ployed in a city that you can easily walk.

Downtown Seattle from Beacon Avenue. This is what you might call the “long way home”.

This was a self-portrait I took with my tripod above Interstate 5 between Pike and Pine Street, at the dog run.  I had been crying, and for some reason I thought I should capture that on film.

February: My favor­ite camera broke after I slipped on the ice outside my house, leav­ing most of the month uncap­tured.  But once I sold my computer and bought a cheaper netbook, I found enough money for a new camera and managed to docu­ment my last few weeks of living in Seattle.

I always loved hiking up to this view­point — in the Mount Baker neigh­bor­hood, high above the tunnels that carried Interstate 90 to down­town.  This is facing Mercer Island and points east­ward in late afternoon.

I loved the double mean­ing of this place.  I also loved that I was one of the few people who actu­ally walked through my neigh­bor­hood on foot.  People used to talk about how ghetto Rainier Valley was, but I loved it.  I may have not liked living in Seattle, but I adored the city itself, who is defense­less and held captive by its largely annoy­ing citizens.

March: A major trans­itional month, as I moved from Seattle on the 1st and visited San Francisco before moving back to Austin.  I met a very special old friend there and fell in love with San Francisco’s cheer­fully painted depravity.

Goodbye Seattle.  At the time I would have laughed at the thought of miss­ing the city, but some­how I do.

The people and the build­ings of San Francisco are so invit­ing and too pretty, even if they remain largely unkempt.

April: Getting used to the real­ity of having to live in Austin.  I didn’t have a car yet so I managed to capture a fair amount of the city at street level.  I was still in denial about the terrible, terrible summer that would soon be coming.

It might be excit­ing to see all these new build­ings sprout­ing up in Austin, but I only photo­graphed them out of lack of anything else inter­est­ing in the city.

May: More of the same.  I was about to sink into a deep depres­sion that coin­cided with the extremely hot weather that began in the middle of month (and lasted through September.)  I also lost my camera on a bus (these were from a borrowed camera).

June: I got a new car and a new camera, but the heat and the loneli­ness make it perhaps the most depress­ing month of my life.   (And that’s not exag­ger­a­tion or hyper­bole, it’s the truth.  I cried almost daily.)

July: another terrible month spent in hell (temperature-wise, employment-wise, and in a number of other ways).  I was begin­ning to wonder if my life was in a tailspin that I would never be able to over­take.  It was over 100 degrees most days.  I spent most of my time doing very irre­spons­ible, harm­ful things.  But I also did a few harm­less things, like drove around the hill coun­try and photo­graphed the dry nothingness.

August: Everything had come to a head.  The weather, my personal situ­ation, the direc­tion of my life.  I had to get out of town to think things through.

September: became suddenly unem­ployed, had to sell my camera that I had just bought.  But I moved in with my aunt and that lifted my spir­its some­what.  The drought was still terrible.

October: The drought subsided, I had a birth­day and began to get desper­ate for money. My love for photo­graphy decreased dramat­ic­ally, but only out of neces­sity and the auster­ity of the moment.

November: Started work­ing part-time to make ends meet, applied for food stamps multiple times but received no response, gained prob­ably 8 pounds. Went to Houston. (Woo!)

December: the first hint at finan­cial solvency comes in the form of a phase I clin­ical trial. My passion for almost everything has been stun­ted, but I’m saving it for a place that I can really belong to instead of simply exist in. 2010 has to get better, it just has to. Because I can’t do another 2009, I just can’t.

Best wishes to you in the next decade.