Cover Story: The Year in Photos
From Black Lives Matter to same-sex marriage, 26 photos that captured 2015
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From Black Lives Matter to same-sex marriage, 26 photos that captured 2015
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For Creative Loafing’s annual Year in Photos issue I try to find a balance between photographs I love and important stories from the past year. As we approach the end of the year, 2015 feels more ominous than most. Maybe that’s why I find myself drawn to the more abstract photos than the literal ones — they feel like a more fitting visual style to reflect the chaos.
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In addition to choosing some of my favorite photographs from the past year, I’ve invited CL freelancers to submit some of theirs and write about them. Each photo captures less than a second in time. The narrative that emerges is one of hope, fear, wonder, joy, beauty, sadness, and love. I hope that we have revealed a tiny bit of the human experience.
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— Joeff Davis, Creative Loafing Photo Editor
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CONTRIBUTORS: Eric Cash, Dustin Chambers, Joeff Davis, Steve Eberhardt, Brandon English, Erik Meadows, Matthew Smith, Jason Travis, Mia Yakel
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3:07 P.M., APRIL 26, 675 PONCE DE LEON AVE.: A friend of mine was set to perform in Flux Projects and Nick Cave’s sold-out show, Up Right Atlanta, at Ponce City Market. I admit that I originally thought that Nick Cave, the Australian musician, was the one putting on this show. It turned out to be Nick Cave, the performance artist from Chicago. After a small drum corps started the killer beat, the dancers came out, led by a sort of drum major figure down an aisle toward the stage. The performers danced around PCM’s food hall with the electrified audience. The figures shook and thrashed wildly at times, and slowed to a halt at others, all to the rhythms of the drums. I loved this performance’s interactive nature. Instead of watching it, we were a part of it. Ironically, the main barrier keeping many in the audience from full immersion was their cameras.
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8:49 P.M., OCT. 24, GEORGIA DOME: I think this photo’s scope is powerful. I am rarely interested in showing what the fans see when they’re at a concert, or what they wish they’d seen when they aren’t. I think this photo goes deeper by giving an honest sense of Taylor Swift’s experience — out there alone, spot lit and glowing amid a vast galaxy of anonymous fans.
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AUG. 31, 467 EDGEWOOD AVE.: This is a picture of Young Jeezy at the Department Store. It was at a secret show to premiere his single “God.” Shooting these images with a Polaroid gave them an immediacy. The photo was taken and immediately came into a haptic reality via the physical Polaroid. Besides the format itself, I like the variety of expressions in all three photos. There is a sense of progression in the scenes, which is something I always strive for when shooting.
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8:33 P.M., SEPT. 12, 216 N. HIGHLAND AVE.: The Beltline Lantern Parade is a popular intown festival that brings more people to my neighborhood each year. Participants build their own lanterns, many of them super creative and detailed, and walk along the Beltline’s Eastside Trail with thousands of others in a gorgeous river of light. I wanted to capture the flow of this “river,” while also experimenting with multiple exposures, so I headed to the bridge near North Highland Walk apartments on North Highland Avenue. This photo was a combination of three exposures. I like the photo because it reminds me of our sense of community here in the city.
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7:57 P.M., AUG. 25, FOURTH WARD SKATEPARK: I’d taken photos at King of Pops yoga before from the ground level. I tried my best to get a wide shot from the ground but I knew it could be more expansive. I decided to try taking a shot with my drone. By the time I flew it to get the best placement the entire group was in savasana, or corpse pose. Lying on the back, the arms and legs are spread at about 45 degrees. I’ve never seen such a large group of people practicing yoga in one place. It was wonderful to behold.
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8:53 P.M., JULY 30, 10950 HUTCHESON FERRY ROAD, CHATTAHOOCHEE HILLS: I spent a day chronicling the life of actress Randi Garza for CL’s Best of Atlanta issue. I was amazed at how she transformed from working as a nanny in the afternoon to playing the lead in Evita at Serenbe Playhouse that same night. This photo captures her moments before her performance, as she crouches alone facing away from the stage and looking out into the forest.
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10:55 A.M., OCT. 8, PROCTOR CREEK NEAR I-285: One of my favorite CL projects of the year was my photo essay on Proctor Creek. I spent days exploring this inner-city creek, an experience that could be spiritual one moment and repulsive the next. This photo of a bike partially submerged in the water captures that vibe.
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1:47 P.M., NOV. 4, SOUTH BROAD STREET: This photo was shot for a story on the Goat Farm expansion on Broad Street. Every day when I was shooting there I noticed this man sleeping. I think his hands look like eyeballs. To me the image represents the homeless in Atlanta being present but unseen. We pass by and learn to ignore them at the expense of our own sense of humanity.
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10:14 A.M., SEPT. 1, 2841 GREENBRIAR PARKWAY: Atlanta Police Chief George Turner (center left) is confronted by Lucius Christian (center right) during Coffee with a Cop, a gathering of neighborhood residents and the police chief at a Greenbriar Mall IHOP. Christian approached Turner to ask for answers about his granddaughter Alexia Christian’s death. According to police, two APD officers shot at Alexia 10 times after she opened fire from inside a police car where she was being detained. She died that day. Police have released details about Alexia’s arrest record and claimed she shot at police after escaping from handcuffs, but, as of publication, no additional information has been released since her death in April. Several surveillance cameras are located close to where she was shot but none of the video has been given to the public or local media.
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6:10 P.M., MARCH 11, DECATUR SQUARE: This is from a protest in downtown Decatur in response to the March 9 shooting of Anthony Hill by DeKalb County Police Officer Robert Olsen. I believe it encapsulates a year of protest not only for Atlantans, but cities nationwide. The story of Hill has been the story of numerous others throughout the year. Out of all of the protest images I have shot this year I believe this one has the most presence. It helps tell the larger narrative of a nation protesting police brutality through the photo’s mix of exhaustion and hope. As long as people take to the streets, I will be there, hopeful that I can one day shoot the celebratory marches that represent a nation correcting its ills.
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12:33 P.M., AUG. 1, YELLOW DAISY PARKING LOT AT STONE MOUNTAIN: I took this photo at the Confederate flag rally at Stone Mountain. I was there photographing the Confederate flag supporters when two protesters arrived and stood on a Confederate flag. The heavily armed crowd rushed to shout threats at them. I was glad that someone had raised the level of discourse at the rally and was challenging the “heritage, not hate” slogan. I love the feeling of bold defiance that the image expresses. The looks on the faces of the police are just icing on the cake. The woman in the photo is Aurielle Marie Lucier, activist and co-founder of #ItsBiggerThanYou. Not seen in the photo is the crowd of armed, angry Confederate flag supporters shouting at her.
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9:17 A.M., OCT. 11, 634 W. PEACHTREE ST.: This photo was made at a pet blessing at All Saints’ Episcopal Church. As this older woman scooched past an intimate congregation of dogs and their humans, I was struck by the visual fragility of the slim whippet and the woman’s slim legs as they slid past each other. This image reminds me how quickly time passes and about the bond between dogs and humans.
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1:19 P.M., SEPT. 16, 924 GARRETT ST.: You can pretty much sell me anything that involves fire as a vital component. The Toasted Old Fashioned at Gunshow is no exception. Last September I worked on three short stop-motion videos for CL’s Food Issue. This was definitely my favorite to shoot. I love this photo because as Bartender Mercedes O’Brien walked me through making the drink, I couldn’t help but feel like I was talking to a magician or a superhero. This photo does a good job of relaying that sensation. As she pinched the orange peel, I was momentarily struck with childlike wonder. This drink is like fireworks.
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3:48 P.M., MAY 9, 395 PIEDMONT AVE.: I’ve seen the Black Lips perform more times than I can count. They garnered a reputation pretty early for their onstage antics. So when Cole Alexander thrust his guitar in the air during this year’s Shaky Knees Festival and started licking it mid-song, I captured a series of shots. This is my favorite because it shows his reflection in the guitar. As a music photographer, after shooting hundreds of shows, many of them start to seem the same, so I’m always looking for something different or at least another way to interpret a situation. This shot reminds me of the vibrant energy of all their PBR-soaked mosh pit shows I’ve experienced. Rock ’n’ roll, baby.
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4:52 P.M., SEPT. 3, A BACKYARD IN EAST ATLANTA: Throughout the summer I chronicled the life and death of a chicken that I met when it was less than 2 days old. For the next three months I photographed it almost every week as it grew from a cute baby chick to a full-size chicken. Chef Hudson Rouse raised it to be killed and eaten. This photograph captures the chicken’s last moment of life as Rouse reaches for a knife to slit its throat.
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1:32 P.M., OCT. 10, 1700 JEURGENS COURT, NORCROSS: This photograph captures Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump coming down the stairs of the stage to greet a screaming crowd after speaking for an hour at a campaign event. Before closing, Trump ridiculed the 14th Amendment, which grants citizenship to people born in the United States. “Congratulations,” he said. “You now have a baby for 85 years that we are taking care of. I don’t think so. I don’t think so!” It is a sad spectacle to watch one of the richest men in America running a campaign in which one of its biggest issues is to blame America’s problems on one of the poorest, most defenseless and hardest working sectors of America.
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7:36 P.M., SEPT. 11, 200 PEACHTREE ST.: I love photographing political campaign events for the opportunity to make candid photographs that seemingly peer into candidates’ souls. I love this photograph because I feel it captures the essence of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders’ intensity and commitment to his vision of a political revolution. I also owe special thanks to the person who decided he should speak in front of an awkward-looking lamp.
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10:52 A.M., SEPT. 5, 518 PEACHTREE ST.: In this photo I see a contradiction. In the context of a parade, this Resident Evil character is applauded for the fun of the game he represents, even as he points his weapon into the crowd. But if on another day this man were to walk down Peachtree Street in costume without that context, he might be arrested or even shot on the spot. With all of the recent mass shootings, we have been conditioned more than ever to fear this lone-man scenario. When I took this photo, I remember feeling conflicted about the intensity of the uniform and the gun pointing into a crowd of families and children, while knowing it was all in good fun and just a part of a celebration.
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2:01 P.M., OCT. 6, 100 EDGEWOOD AVE.: Heather Craytor glances at her father while rappelling down the 17-story United Way building in Downtown Atlanta. Craytor was participating in an event to raise awareness of addiction and provide support to families who have been impacted by the disease as part of a fundraiser for the nonprofit group Shatterproof. She said the hardest part of going down the building was at the start when she had to step into “the empty space.” “At that moment, I questioned every decision that got me there,” Craytor said.
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6:23 P.M., JUNE 17, JONESBORO: Chwanda Nixon (left) and Kacey Frierson sit underneath five of the marriage certificates they’ve received in states where same-sex marriage was legal, prior to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling this summer that legalized same-sex marriage. When I photographed them in June they’d gotten married in more than a dozen states. The couple was waiting for Georgia to catch up. Now that the Supreme Court has ruled on gay marriage the couple say they plan to get married in Georgia after they get married in all the other 49 states. “We are hoping by 2017 to do Georgia, 2018 at the latest,” Frierson says, “unless we find a sponsor or a reality show.”
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10:50 P.M., JULY 8, 887 W. MARIETTA ST.: This is a photo from a Father (of Awful Records fame) concert. I was on stage with the performers throughout the show. There always is a punk energy communicated between the performers and the crowd at Father/Awful Records shows. I respond well to concerts that have an abundance of energy. The moment captured was a rare moment of respite in what was otherwise a show brimming with chaos and stage dives.
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4:46 P.M., SEPT. 14, NORTHSIDE DRIVE AND CARTER STREET: This photograph is about pure unadulterated fandom. It’s one thing to wear a T-shirt that supports your favorite team. In this case, it’s almost like football fan Janice Walker has assumed an alter ego: a giant falcon! Sports are a great escape for many of us. While dressed this way, Walker’s friends might not even recognize her. I would take it a step further and say maybe that’s the point of the get-up: to be someone else for a bit.
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7:39 P.M., JAN. 7, PHILIPS ARENA: In January, I attended five straight Atlanta Hawks home games in the midst of the team’s historical winning streak for a cover story on how it rebounded from the controversy surrounding racist comments made by a previous owner and general manager. Without court access for most of the games I was forced to take photographs from odd angles. This image was shot right before tip off of a game against the Memphis Grizzlies.
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7:40 P.M., MARCH 16, SOMEWHERE OVER ATLANTA LOOKING WEST: For CL’s 2015 Neighborhood Issue, I went up in a tiny helicopter and photographed five new construction projects. This image was shot at the end of my two-hour ride.