Demum Veris: A goodbye to winter

Saturday marked the first day of spring... and though I am excited for the return of warm weather, later night falls, and navigable sidewalks, I'm most excited that my camera will be coming out of hibernation. If you haven't totally tuned out from visiting The Viewfinder, you've undoubtedly noticed that there has been about a two-month lapse during which no new posts have been shared.

Though I regret this, I must admit that the lack of activity was due to a lack of creative inspiration and most importantly, a two-month catalog of new images that I just did not really believe in. Thus, I've decided to put behind me my photography drought, and share only a few images from the last few months as a way of saying goodbye to winter.



Beacon Hill after Boston's first full night of snow.


One of my favorite parts of this winter was visiting my childhood hometown of Lititz, Pennsylvania in January. It's funny how the combination of distance and time can make one nostalgic, but for me a visit to Lititz is like chicken soup. The above photo is the famed Wilbur Chocolate factory, out of which wafts a daily aroma of melted chocolate. In these moments Lititz becomes a Rockwellian setting in which you walk the streets fully expecting to run into George Bailey himself.

Pittsburgh served as another brief destination this winter. After witnessing the inauguration, we worked our way across Pennsylvania for a quick visit with my parents, and later to Pittsburgh to visit our good friend Matt Desjardins (blogging shout out). Matt recently left Boston for a masters program in international espionage at the University of Pittsburgh... no joke! If the photograph above is any indication, we hung out in Pittsburgh on probably the coldest weekend of the year. The following weekend, inspired by our visit, the Pittsburgh Steelers won the Super Bowl.


Dear The Viewfinder Blog, please stop blogging about Barack Obama. Yours truly, The Internet.

Okay, I promise to expand the scope of topics on my blog in the coming months, but I would be remiss if I neglected to follow up on my coverage of the inauguration. Beyond the already told stories of massive crowds, history-making speeches, Aretha Franklin's hat, and a botch-job by Justice Roberts, the real story of the inauguration for me was the monumental, yet nearly noiseless catharsis felt while huddling shoulder to shoulder with millions of my fellow citizens as we bared witness to history. Now I am well aware that due to my age and my ancestral background, I am someone who cannot fully and personally appreciate the total importance of Barack Obama's election. Thus, the catharsis I speak about is one born from a lifetime of presidents who, to me, have placed reelection before the country, and in the process have bargained our security and prosperity for poll numbers and personal gain. More simply, I've only seen politicians, not statesmen become president.

Obama is only 63 days into his presidency, and though the impact of his policy shifts are still months and years away, the tenacity and urgency with which his administration has addressed our pressing issues confirm to me that Obama is more statesman than politican. And the photo above, my literal place in the history of Obama's election... reminds me that I played a part in arguably the most important political seachange in the history of our country. It does feel like we are coming out of the winter.

On My Way to DC for Obama's Inauguration: A pre-inauguration post

On Tuesday, January 20th, I will be one of the millions in attendance for the inauguration of our 44th President, Barack Obama. I've been waiting almost four and a half years for this day, and for others, the events on Tuesday have been generations in the making. Please return to The Viewfinder in a couple weeks for an inauguration post. Don't expect any photos of the man himself as I won't be anywhere near him. However, I hope to piece together a nice photo essay of the people there to witness the day.

Here's a quick collection of some Obama campaign events that I revisited this afternoon.

Barack Obama speaking in the Boston Common, October 23, 2007.

The crowd behind the stage on the night that Sen. Ted Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy, and Sen. John Kerry officially endorsed Obama.
Though horribly out of focus, the movement in this photo really captured the electricity in the hall.

"The fierce urgency of now."

Ron English is an American pop artist who joined the many artists who created visual street art in support of Barack Obama. The above photo is a shot from the now iconic piece, "Abraham Obama" that was installed in the South End in Boston this fall. Though I'm not a big fan of his other works, this piece is genius. English deconstructed the classic portrait of Abraham Lincoln to include the likeness of Obama. A graffiti-ist added the eye patch. The overall feel makes me a bit uneasy, but the concept is classic.

Barack Obama 2007-2008 (Catching You Up: 9 of 11)

I can remember exactly where I was when I first heard Barack Obama speak at the DNC convention in 2004. I remember what I ate for dinner that night... I even remember what shirt I was wearing. After his address, I was on the phone with my dad asking if he had watched, and telling him that this guy needed to be our next president.

The four years that followed that speech to the night that the Obamas took the stage in Grant Park in Chicago, I've been a bit obsessed... maybe too obsessed depending on who you ask. Obama's articulations of the issues facing our country were exactly how I had formulated them in my mind on countless nights as I fell asleep. To me, his campaign ran on the platform of common sense... middle class tax cuts; talking to your enemies; personal responsibility and accountability; equitable access to education; actionable environmental safeguards. When he became our 44th President, I was once again proud to be in a country of hope and progress.

The first time I heard Barack Obama in person was in the fall of 2007 in the Boston Common. Earlier that day, I actually called the campaign and a few newspapers in Boston in a futile attempt to get a press pass to be in the unobstructed press box to snap some photos. I of course was denied. Looking back, I'm glad I had the view that appears in the above photo. To me, the photo has a 1960s political aesthetic. Obama had embodied the urgency of Martin Luther King and the solidarity of Bobby Kennedy, and rebranded and repackaged it into a new voice and message. He was operating on all cylinders that night and he left the crowd electrified.

I don't know if I can take credit for the above photo. It's possible that my friend Andrew Martin took this shot. We were standing next to each other that night sharing one camera. I saw Barack Obama speak for the 2nd time on the evening that Ted and Caroline Kennedy endorsed Obama. Unlike the speech in the Boston Common in 2007 where I waited in line for about 30 minutes to get into the event, this night included a four and a half hour wait. Obama had gained some serious momentum having won a slew of states on Super Tuesday, February 5th. Though his speech had me once again transfixed, this time it was the crowd that reinforced my belief that this man needed to be our 44th. I knew it when I saw teenagers hanging on every word about getting a break from college costs only if they serve their communities. I knew it when I looked back at the crowd and saw a perfectly diverse sample of our Union. I knew it when I saw tears stream down the faces of elderly black men and women who knew that waiting in line for four hours in the cold was nothing compared to their lifelong wait.