The Year in Pictures - 2024

So it only took me three and a half months to decide that I should probably do a year in pictures review as I’ve usually done the past couple of years. Most photographers seem to have something posted at 11:59 on the 31st of December, armed and ready to show the world their year in 12 simple photographs. Although for this past year I’ve taken the Bohemian approach (just being lazy). Perhaps I was too concentrated on making 2024 into my flop year for me to care enough to review photographs and my year. Usually when I do a picture review for the year I consult my journals, receipts, travel maps, and other personal articles to re-piece the year back together for myself, it’s a nice refresher. Perhaps it was the strange chaos of upending my life and returning to the US with absolutely no prospects and on an election year that made it rather difficult for me to piece anything back together. Yet also in a strange sense that I struggled to pick up on, I did make the year, for all of its mental laziness, work for me. I only realized it last week when I was talking with my colleague Mark at work. I told him that I had finally scored a teaching job teaching high school history in Center Line. Mark had formerly worked at Detroit Public Schools for a decade and was working on getting re-hired there. He very enthusiastically stated “You made it work, you worked at the bookstore, you did the license program, and now you made it.”

This year I’m taking the approach to the year in photos a little bit different. More photographs and less writing, which has been the antithesis of my understanding of photography for the past few years now.

January

I came back to Detroit in December of 2023 to see my grandfather but he departed before I could even step foot in the airport in Poland. I arrived home and he was already in his urn. Christmas and the New Year passed and I decided to go see Eliza in New York during the height of NYC’s tourism season, mid-January. We spent a week galavanting the city, going to jazz clubs and backroom billiards halls. Driving back to Detroit I decided to make a stop in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where the once famous Bethlehem Steel Works operated and powered the city. I made my own replica of the famous Walker Evans photo, taken 89 years before my own photograph above.

February

I returned back to Krakow in late January with a job lined up at a major European consulting firm. Winters in Poland are harsh so attempting to get out and take photographs in the cold, wet weather is always a pain in the ass. I spent more time reading and writing than anything. I also started shooting more on black and white film, which I had widely moved away from. I received my grandpas Canon AE-1 back in Michigan and brought it to Krakow with me to experiment with. The camera looked like it had never left its carrying case, although my grandpa had used it a lot in the 1980’s and 1990’s to photograph the truck yard and the truckers, mechanics and office workers. This is one of the first photographs I took on the camera, the line 14 tram heading eastbound on Karmelicka.

March

I found rabbi Don Perkal and his yeshiva students walking through Kazimierz on one of my days off of work. One of the boys noticed my camera and shouted for me take a photo, I turned around and the whole group was already setting up and posing for me.

April

I took this photo a few days after I quit my job at the consulting firm. It was the shortest time I had ever been at a company (9 weeks). I had completely snapped under the intense micro-management and constantly changing deadlines with absolutely no reward or respite in sight. I told my friends I’d rather fill potholes and change tires than have to work for a corporation ever again. At this time in Krakow the weather finally lets up and shooting outside becomes more possible. I started shooting with my friend Edouard again and started practicing with zone focusing. Zone focusing is basically using a narrow aperture on your lens and judging the distance of yourself from the subject so you can basically shoot from the hip and still get an in-focus image with a manual lens. I got this photo of a cellist on the corner of Szewska and the Rynek, polishing her cello. I had seen her there a few times before in the past. I moved back to Detroit two weeks after I took this photo.

May

In May I was finally settling back into American life again. I asked my friend Bella, who runs a dance non-profit if I could photograph the backstage of one of the shows that she was hosting (Fragments in Order by Lena Granger). The performance was at the Andy Art Center, on Detroit’s West Side. The art center is an old industrial building, similar to an aircraft hanger for bush planes, modified with a stage and venue area. I photographed the dancers stretching, preparing and gossiping backstage, relying on light solely from an open roll door protected with chain link.

June

Left: Creedmore, NC. Right: Asheville, NC

In June I saw my high school friend Sam for the first time in six years. He flew up to Detroit and spent a few days, and then we drove back to Charlotte, NC through Dayton, Nashville, and Asheville. We got to visit with my friend Seth in Nashville I always seem to meet with at train station, bars, and sometimes even train station bars. We spent time in Charlotte, Raleigh, and on the Outer Banks with some of Sam’s friends. Also Sam, sorry I was a broke as ever during the trip, I’ll make it up to you. I hadn’t visited North Carolina in a couple of years and it was of course fantastic to see old friends and make new ones along the way.

July

Michigan’s hot summers took me north to the Upper Peninsula to meet with my sister and family. We spent our time at the beach near Cedarville and visiting with my aunts, uncles and cousins. We went into Sault Ste. Marie and I took this picture of the Skyline Motel, at the junction of M-129 and the Mackinac Trail. I had considered moving back to Kraków but at this point I was becoming locked into life in the US to make it work sensibly.

August

In August I got a job at the John King Bookstore in Detroit. The massive four story bookstore is perhaps one of the more unique jobs that I’ve had. Life finally started to feel a bit more engaging and a bit less stressful. I often photograph old industrial areas in Southwest Detroit and downriver. I very vividly remember going to these areas with my dad when I was a kid, and I would see the old steel plants, abandoned Hungarian churches and motorcycle gang bars as we cruised the area in search of truck parts and diesel equipment. This photo is of the DTE River Rouge Power Plant.

September

In September I was adjusting to my new job and started classes to get a teaching license. My friend Nick told me that his band, The Microplastics, was performing at Lager House and I told him that I’d stop by. I had bought a new camera, a Chinon 3001 point and shoot, and needed to test some film before the 14 day return policy was up. I shot there show and the majority of the pictures came out relatively well. This photo of Peter with his guitar is my favorite from the night.

October

Salem, MA. The day before Halloween.

In October I went to Boston and Maine with the family. It was my sister’s idea to see Maine in the fall and try to swing Salem around Halloween. I had never been to New England before and my perception was that it’s a very entitled version of the Upper Peninsula. Acadia National Park was gorgeous and Bangor, Augusta, and Portland were cute cities. We spent an afternoon in Salem, which has been utterly corrupted by touristic capitalism to the most degrading of degrees. There was no balance here, only out of towners and profit, which is a shame for how historic the city is. We were waiting to take a guided tour of the town’s historical landmarks and I decided to shoot as many street performers and costumed people as possible in less than an hour.

November

I managed to get Big Bird against Comerica Park as we approached the Thanksgiving Day Parade. I had never been before, usually opting for the Lions game when we used to be season ticket holders. It was one of the more relaxed Thanksgivings I’ve had in a long time, as I used to host the holiday in Kraków for all of my friends. I also started student teaching in Canton as well. The students were wonderful but I cannot stand Canton as a place. Busy and crowded, everything happens on Ford Road, which might seem lively but nothing is lively when every soul is crammed into an oversized SUV trying to make a left turn into Ikea. Regardless, I enjoyed my time teaching and started to prep for the teaching exam.

December

Christmas, punk shows, and holidays at the bookstore. The photos above are from the Mirror Mask show at UFO Bar in Corktown. Some of the photos would eventually be featured in Creem Magazine. I like photographing the rock scene, although I would like to branch into the city’s jazz scene as well. The high key lighting and necessity for full flash has started to feel rather repetitive, although I wrote positively about it here a few years ago. The week after Christmas at the bookstore was hell on earth. I did not believe I was cut out for customer service in any way but perhaps I’m forcing myself to be. I’ve made a fair amount of friends and acquaintances at the bookstore in the past few months I’ve been there, but the holidays were the height of stress. I did manage to finish my teaching program and passed the teaching test a few weeks later.

P.S.

Once again, thanks to everyone who has helped me out in the past year in these weird times. You know who you are. I’ve recently got a job teaching high school history in the Warren area, so I don’t plan on leaving Detroit anytime soon.