Fourth Sunday through Tom's Looking Glass

Reflecting emotion and action

By Tom Lowe

The year 2007 found me working with St. Mary’s Senior Center, Alameda County Community Food Bank, and the ASSETS Senior Employment Opportunities program. The latter is a federally funded retraining project, part of LBJ’s Great Society initiatives of 1964, administered by the City of Oakland. I was spending quite a bit of time around Frank Ogawa Plaza, where Oakland’s City Hall is situated, and the photos of that year reflect that.

Inauguration of Ron Dellums as Mayor of Oakland
(The three singers worked
in the City's Social Services Agency)

Youth immigrant/education rights demonstration, Ogawa Plaza, Oakland

Immigration rights demonstration, Ogawa Plaza, Oakland

“Corn Maiden,” Hunger Day in Sacramento, State Capitol Park

Quinque Cruz (who survived the U.S.-sponsored Pinochet terror in Chile),
World Music Festival, Berkeley

    Rick Tejeda-Flores, shown with Quinque in the following video, was my teacher in a documentary film class:

Dolores Huerta and Margaret Molina, Senior Appreciation Day, Oakland City Hall
(Dolores, with Cesar Chavez a founder of the United Farmworkers Union,
was the Keynote speaker)

Mardi Gras parade, San Francisco

St. Mary’s Center, Oakland (Having been high school sweethearts,
these two reconnected as clients of the St. Mary’s Senior services.
The cameras were for a photo essay on their living situation.)

I tend to shoot on motion, reflecting people’s emotion and action. Years ago, someone was generous enough to compare my work to that of Henri Cartier-Bresson, which kindness sent me to study Cartier-Bresson's work, causing me to think harder about how to see the “decisive moment” for a photograph. I’m not anywhere in the league with one of the Magnum photographers who documented the post-WWII world for Paris Match and Life; but perhaps I sometimes give a face to my times.

Copyright © 2014 by Tom Lowe