A Happy New Year is what we are all wishing and praying for.
People say that luckily this one is almost over, but is it?
And what is over exactly?
Well, the year for starters but the rest, well that is another story.
I don’t even know how to sum up this year which started really well and then only went down hill from there. And we are still rolling, thinking all the way down, where the hell will we land?
Maybe in a futuristic scenario where human beings stay home forever, hoping one day they will be allowed out and resume normal life? Will we even remember what normal looked like? What will be the future? Being forced to take vaccine after vaccine or else?
Today, my 10-year old daughter was reading us a diary entry she had written in June. It sounded like a sci fi novel. She started like “the year 2020 was when the Corona virus appeared and our life changed. They say it can kill people with serious diseases and very old people …”.
I often tell her about my childhood, how we played in the street and in each other’s gardens. How there were no mobile phones or computers, no google to help us with our homework. What if you were late going home or you got lost? How could you warn your parents? she asked me. Well, it was difficult, but I could enter a shop and ask the shopkeeper to let me use their phone or ask for directions and hope to get there eventually.
What a difficult life, she said. I cannot imagine how you coped. Yes of course we didn’t have all this technology to help us. But was it so bad?
What is she going to say to her children one day? “When I was 10, the world changed and this was the year when I stopped going to school for most of the year and instead had zoom classes at a distance. And the year when we couldn’t travel anymore because it wasn’t safe, when wearing masks became fashionable and disinfectants with different flavors become cool. When I could only see most of my family through Skype…”.
I hope not, I hope the new year will somehow bring us a miracle so that we can all move on and think about 2020 as just an odd year, a one off!
What about me? A photographer who was used to be out almost everyday on the streets photographing freely. There is nothing like being able to observe, to witness, to understand better other fellow human beings. Reality is, streets are very empty under the 3rd lockdown, nothing seems to be going on.
For someone who was used to travel every few months, it has been trying.
I have seen several photographers online saying thank god for our archives and I couldn’t agree more. I have been going back in time and down memory lane a lot lately.
It is fascinating how certain pictures speak to you in different ways now and how grateful I am I got to take them. I believe some experiences only happen one time if you are lucky.
And I have been lucky! I’m so grateful for all those special moments and unforgettable places. I’m also thankful I managed to gather all the material for my new project before leaving Iran.
Above anything else, I am so lucky to have a wonderful family and to have such an array of good friends from all over the world who have stayed with me through thick and thin.
Finally on these last days of the year, I could only think about pictures that show how sociable we humans can be. It is in our nature and part of who we are. So here it is, from some of the places that have crossed my path, hoping the next will be a happy new year indeed!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
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