Getting Closer to Maxwell Park – Judy Salamon
A year ago today, I taught a photography workshop in San Francisco. The students practiced “getting closer.“ I encouraged participants to acknowledge discomfort and create support networks. As I wrote last year, “Photographers build bridges to people who are lonely,” but we often forget to build our own bridges.
Three months after the workshop, I photographed a neighborhook candlelight vigil. Our neighbor, Judy Salamon, had been shot and killed in the neighborhood. I rushed over to the vigil “to get closer.” Perhaps I believed that if I got close enough, I could help. Lately, I have been pulling back, because I lost my focus. I needed a bridge.
Yesterday, Oakland Police announced that two men were charged for murdering Salamon. According to several publications and interviews, OPD claim that Salamon filmed the two men after witnessing a crime. She was shot when she would not relinquish her phone.… Read the rest
