August — A Year in Photographs — Beautiful Garbage

A question philosophers and scientists have asked since the concepts existed, “what is consciousness?” For some, it is emergent like patterns in the sand on a beach or spiral of a snail shell. But some suggest that consciousness is fundamental like gravity or thermodynamics.

Pansychism is that scientific and philosophical marriage that everything in the universe has some sense of consciousness—from atom to human. While I’ll not write a dissertation here on the subject, it catches my curiosity and resonates with my view of the universe yet has a powerful consequential question: if everything is conscious in even the most simple form, how does that change our relationship when we see everything as somehow kindred and not foreign?

Not to suggest Chicago is full of trash and garbage, we are in fact a very clean and beautiful city, but there are those of us locals and visitors who leave much behind. While Beautiful Garbage was originally, years ago, a simple outset to find beauty in otherwise ugliness, #AYearinPhotographs set out to honor that which was left behind and ask for your imagination to come along with me:

What if everything we left behind remembers us?

June — A Year in Photographs — Through the Looking Glass

Balloons — Day 158

Perhaps what makes something wonderful is the imperfections rather than the perfection.

A crack in a family heirloom. The decay of an artifact. The crooked nature of a bonsai. The Japanese call it ‘wabi sabi,’ the philosophy that embodies the appreciation of beauty in imperfection, impermanence, and the natural cycle of growth and decay.

I took June to look at ordinary things through unordinary glass. Some reversal of images, blurring and distortion of edges, and the refraction of the image itself.

“Adrian’s Life Rule 25: Sometimes things that are technically wrong are creatively right.”

— Adrian’s Life Rule #25

May — A Year in Photographs — New Neighborhood

Union — Day 150

The search began in November of 2024 to find a new home. From Lincoln Park, an explored dozens of condominiums in Chicago, seeing hundreds online, I settled in River North—a vibrant urban neighborhood in Chicago.

While one may have been in and through River North many times, it isn’t until living in a neighborhood that true exploration of a neighborhood begins.

As I step out of my new building, I encounter new sights and familiar ones. However, the photographer’s true essence lies in their ability to perceive and capture unseen moments.

New home, new neighborhood.