Reflecting on That
Summer
11
I returned home at the
end of
each day and developed the film in a
darkroom I made out of my bedroom
closet. I was yet unfit to execute
the
film properly, hence the somewhat
muddy
quality to some of the over- or
under-exposed images.
It was a summer of learning for me,
about social perspectives, human
interaction, the power of people to
effect change. I would see similar
scenes of unrest and confrontation
in
subsequent years: during annual
riots at
my college, Ohio University (which
commemorated the Kent
State Massacre); protests against
primate experiments and animal
cruelty
at Emory University and at
anti-American
demonstrations in Panama.
The summer of ‘72, however, became
particularly poignant for me, for I
discovered that soon the masses of
youth
would allow their idealism to
wane. By the time I was in college,
the
focus was less on the world and more
on
personal stability in the face of
rising
unemployment and
materialism.
