Fire Season Hits Home

 

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We wake to a Friday after five days of fire in the North Bay.  With more than 100 acres scorched, dozens dead, and fires still going.  A “hellish” week for those who have had to feel the heat in the flesh.

The ominous smell of smoke lingers over our heads reminding of the loss already had and the impending loss that sparking embers fly with.  I know I’m not the only praying that tonight’s cold air helps the firefight.

May tomorrow bring extinguished flames and cleaner air to our region.

–JMG

Shutting Down Hate: Right-wing Nationalists Retreat in the 2nd Battle of Berkeley

On Sunday, August 27th a right-wing nationalist rally was scheduled to happen at Martin Luther King Jr. Park, in Berkeley’s civic center.  The planned hate party was cancelled last minute over “safety” concerns from its organizers.   The same predicament had played out the day before in San Francisco, where the organized response to a similar planned rally prompted thousands to march and openly denounce bigotry, racism, and organized hate in their city.  What was sensationalized and projected to be a violent weekend of clashes with white nationalists and a left of center responses became an overwhelming, unified response against the hate espoused by neo-Nazis, white Nationalists, and  conservative xenophobes from the San Francisco and East Bay community.

Given the outcome of the first battle in Berkeley on April 26th earlier this year and the rage prompted by Charlottesville a few weeks ago, I anticipated a strong response from the Antifa factions that were humiliated as they were punched, kicked, and run out of the  civic center last April.  Numerous response rallies marched to what many might have imagined was going to be a Berkeley civic center crawling with hate-groups and angry far-Right wingers by late afternoon.  What they found was the remnants of a loud, and often volatile debate on hate.  Although hate-groups passed on showing up, individuals whose Right-wing, racist convictions are strong enough to risk the public ridicule made their presence known.  Just like in Charlottesville, those who came defending far-Right ideas and Trump’s hate mongering agenda were debated, shouted at, and ultimately run out of the grounds.

Exiting the park I had heavy feeling in my heart that had me thinking of Dr. King.  Although the rage and indignity arises from love, I couldn’t help but to feel the ruse of power among us.  I felt no one won that day.  That’s the tragedy of it all. The powder keg was lit in Charlottesville, the clown President gave the flame oxygen, and now we have more tragedy ahead of us.

Interesting times for my camera’s lens, but such a sad state of affairs in the nation.

RIP Heather Heyer.

— JMG, Berkley CA

 

 

 

 

Homes for the Homeless

 

Gentrification in the East Bay has prompted a rise in homelessness across the region. Outcrops of camps have lined freeway underpasses, abandoned lots, and city corners with enough space to pitch tents. The shots in this series depict the struggle for affordable housing and the manner in which life gravitates around this homeless camp on the Berkley/Oakland border. What in days past has been called the he invisible face of homelessness has become more and more visible and familiar to us as a surge of people around us fall from the grace of stability and are forced to live in tents.

This is the first installment of a series that seeks to invite the public to stop, take a closer look, and prompt viewers to begin an internal or public dialogue about the crisis in homelessness Oakland is currently experiencing.

–JMG

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The Glow Of Sublimating Truth

Not quite in view is a dry ice sculpture by Judy Chicago, executed at the SF MOMA on April 26, 2017. The sculpture spelled out the word TRUTH, then it was lit up with road flares to precipitate the sublimation of the dry ice. The piece is a metaphor for the way “truth” is treated in the current political landscape. From “alternative facts” to “fake news,” the weight and reliability of facts seem to be fleeting more and more. I like the way this picture communicates that nothing but a pink haze is left behind when truth is obliterated.

I’m keeping photos of the actual sculpture in the vault. This sort of documentary photography usually carries more artistic value years after the fact. It was great to work with Judy, Donald, and their crew on this once in a lifetime experience. It was a total honor to touch history with my lens.

–JMG

Oakland by Night: A Photographic Profile of Oakland’s First Friday Art Walk

My love for low light photography and street photography draws me into the night, camera in hand, consistently.  The aim is always to brush up with Brassai and show Oakland’s nocturnal aura. Paris isn’t Oakland and Oakland isn’t Paris. The sleepy romantic secrets of Brassaï’s Paris are far from Oakland’s open air creative culture, its “on fleek” style, and its hyphee movements.

Hyphee in Motion: The Art of “Tut” & “Turf” Reflects the Vitality of Oakland Arts Cutting Edge

Oakland’s First Friday art walk continues to demonstrate that this city might be second to none when it comes to incubating and generating unique visionaries that push content and form in the arts.  This set was shot at First Friday, an event most think of as a showcase for the East Bay’s creative communities.  Turf (referring to the foot work) and Tut (referring to the arm work) take show case to another level as it’s energy is infectious and exalts the amazing beauty of the human form in movement.

Photographing the performing arts in lowlight without flash helps me record and show motion.  Shooting under these setting also limit the sharpness of the shots.  A fact I can live with in order to show in photographs the fleeting energy of innovative youth at the top of their game.

—JMG

Portrait of a Chinatown Pop-up Grocer

 

 

Oakland’s Chinatown is all about getting a bargain on fresh food. Close enough to the Port of Oakland and Oakland’s central produce market, you can’t beat the prices on fresh greens, pork, poultry, or fresh sea food (from cat fish to eel).

Lately I have been preoccupied, pondering why photography seems to gravitate to these ethnic enclaves.  One can read Chinatown photographs as a kind of internal travel photography that at some level objectifies the subjects it captures.   Weary of enacting the colonial gaze, I battle with my desire to shoot as an outsider.

This shot illustrates the anxiety I articulate above because I wanted to make a portrait of this friendly pop-up fruit seller as she seemed friendly enough but every time I pointed that lens at her she raised her hand as if saying hello, but blocking her face on purpose.  After the fourth click I realized that was the shot: her clean, tidy fruit set up waiting for the next customer to sell her handful of goods. I like the shot because it was clear it was ok for me to take the shot, but it needed to be done on her terms, stripping away the power of the camera and a potential colonial gaze.

I began this series because more and more, this corner of Oakland is becoming dear to me and I fear that it is only a matter of time before the sea-change that is rapidly transforming the cityscape also claims Chinatown for the sake if new luxury development.  It’s only a matter of time, thus the Chinatown Hustle series seeks to document its working life and people.

 

–JMG

Portrait of a Bay Area Freedom Fighter

Oakland has a long, deep tradition of activism. From the Black Panthers to the Black Block of the occupy movement to the most recent Black Lives Matters movement,

strong advocates for common humanity make Oakland home. As an observer of the city’s movements for the last decade, Pancho stands out as a figure reminiscent of Mario Salvio who doesn’t hold back to speak truth to power. He carries a flag imprinted with a globe because universal human rights is his cause.

On this day he was happy to meet Bobby Seale, who graciously granted I take a portrait of them together. I meant for this shot to have historical significance as it shows the penthouse that Huey P. Newton lived at when we was finally exonerated from attempt of murder charges in his infamous 1968 case.

Pancho reminds me of one of those prophets in Biblical time whose commitment to truth and justice defines his conviction to refuse excess, rely on the bare essentials to finds rightiousness.  I love that the camera reveals these figures to me as I realize that without it I would miss the Ghaindi’s and King’s around me.

–JMG

White Silence Is Violence

A white majority made itself heard last week in the U.S. putting its support behind a candidate that promises to keep his bigoted, White-nationalist, Islamophobic promises.

This shot (taken this summer the day after Alton Brown murder) signals irony and impossibility given the recent turn of events in the Presidential election.  Irony lies behind the predictions and poll models that were confident most Americans would make an ethical choice.  The impossibility of being trapped between White silence and the White rural vote for the next four years leaves many of us with nothing but disappointment because making America great never includes making room for folks of color.

Sorry Langston, we are still having to fight for our place on the table.

***See more of my Black Lives Matter Series in my galleries section.***

–JMG

Cheap Thrills

 

It’s amazing how much fun a kid can have with a hill and a bit of space to run on.

I like how the only person aware of the lens happens to be kind of shy, yet friendly. We can’t tell if the mother is totally unaware or if she is also totally enjoying the cheap thrills being had just above her.

I happened to be moving around this day from an estuary clean-up to a visit to an Outdoor Afro program out on Oakland’s Lake Merritt when I saw the kids taking turns making a roller coaster out of the steep ground. Covering this much ground yields little gems like this.

— JMG

OLYMPUS MIRORLESS DIGITAL, M5 (ISO 200 / f.5.6 / 1/4000)