Top Photos of 2022

 

“Those of us who survived, are now through the 3rd year of this pandemic.”

That quote is a modification of the introduction to last year’s post of Top Photos for 2021. The death toll rate has subsided some over 2022, but we still accumulated another 300,000 deaths from COVID in 2022, for a total of 1.1 million Americans dead from COVID, and over 6.7 million deaths worldwide from this pandemic.

In the early days of the pandemic, there was lots of discussion from folks minimizing it, and saying that it would not be that big of a deal, resisting any and all reasonable measures to contain and treat it.  I had more optimistic hopes about how the world would handle it, but… here we are. The explosion of disinformation via social media and authoritarianism along with the relentless rise of anti-science sentiment doomed us to disaster. When I was modeling the spread of COVID in the early days of the pandemic, I shut the lab down when I thought even a moderate outbreak would mean 16,350 American deaths. Of course now we know that the worst case scenario predicted by President Obama’s former CDC director was close to being the true number.

As I said this time last year, my hopes are that things start to normalize pandemically speaking in 2023.  The impact of the pandemic, along with professional and personal challenges meant that this year has been the most challenging of my adult life, and I’m so done with 2022.  In 2022, I lost a grant that was renewed last time at 1%, was in its 18th year which also represented the most productive and successful period in the history of the grant. We produced the world’s first pathoconnectomes this period, a first in any system by any research group on the planet in response to the strategic aims by the National Eye Institute.  This grant was just a modular grant and not that much money, but the grant was precious to me and represented the continuation of work begun for my PhD dissertation.  To say that I felt devastated at its loss would be an understatement.  Nobody I’ve talked to who have the combined many decades of experience with NIH understands how this could have happened, and everyone to a person feels that this was a horrible mistake.  These are the vagaries of funding these days I suppose…

That event combined with continued events and handling of certain issues at my university/department, and at the state and federal level with respect to the Roe v. Wade decision, as well as appropriate representation, led to me looking at options for leaving science this year.  I successfully interviewed with 3 separate companies, and had three compelling offers… One which was amazing.  I turned them down for reasons that I cannot talk about now, but I felt that the science was not quite there yet, and I did not thin my participation could have improved that.  I do feel that I can continue to substantially contribute to the field of connectomics, and other events that perhaps I can discuss one of these days complicated the prospect of leaving science, particularly the retinal connectomics efforts that we have been pioneers in.  Connectomics is in its infancy, in much the same place as genetics was 30-40 years ago in terms of its promise.  And there is so much that I want to do with it still to shepherd it into new understandings of neural circuitry, vision, blindness, new approaches to machine learning and more.

It is fair to say that there are going to be some changes in 2023 coming up, and I look forward to where things are going.  Some of these changes are being made possible through an amazing gift to my research lab by a donor who would like to remain anonymous.  One of these days, I’d love to talk about who that is, and have a discussion about how amazing the timing was with that, and how generous it was.  But not now.

Photographically, this year was a little better than last year, partially because I was able to get out of the house and lab a bit more this year, and even did some travel where I got to reconnect with friends and colleagues at a couple of meetings.

 

Camera: Leica M9
Exposure: 1/125
Aperture: f/8
Focal Length: 35mm
ISO: 200

The year started with a snowstorm that blanketed the city and gave us a promising start to a New Year with good snowpack that would help alleviate the drought. Unfortunately, the snows did not persist through the year, and we were again, down in snow totals exacerbating the drought in Utah and throughout the West.  I used that walk through the neighborhood to focus on some of the abstract shapes around the neighborhood.  It is always a good exercise to try and see the world immediately around you with a new eye from time to time, and a walk with a camera is just the tool to assist with that.

 

Camera: Leica Monochrom
Exposure: 1/60
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 2,000

The very next post the following day was a portrait of H, made sitting in the front room on a cold day with hot coffee, enjoying each others company.  This was the traditional holiday break before the insanity of 2022 set in.  I liked the almost timeless aspect of the image, of the human form wrapped in a blanket that could almost be from within any period of time in the last couple hundred years.

 

Camera: Leica M9
Exposure: 1/4000
Aperture: f/1.4
Focal Length: 35mm
ISO: 160

This little bird refuge is right up the street from us a short walk. I intended to get into bird photography again in 2022, but the year conspired to prevent that from happening.  This is something I aim to rectify in 2023 with a scheduled outing specifically for birds with a friend of mine, Michael Redmond in February.  I’ll also make a return to this place over the year to try and get some local birds.  This photo was made in early February after the snows of December and January had left, and the refuge was dry and leafless, exposing the bridge that is normally hidden by foliage in other seasons.  Again, a rather timeless image because of the architecture of the walk bridge, and a reminder of the beauty that is all around us, in our own backyards.

 

Camera: Leica SL
Exposure: 1/1250
Aperture: f/1.5
Focal Length: 85mm
ISO: 4,000

I picked up a very old design lens earlier in the year, a Helios 40-2 85mm f/1.5 lens that is an absolutely awful design with no sharpness whatsoever, just about anywhere in the lens.  However, it renders rather imperfectly beautiful images, and is kinda unique for portraits.  I tested it out on our cat Elanor who just loooooves to pose for images.

 

Camera: Leica M-P 240
Exposure: 1/125
Aperture: f/5
Focal Length: 21mm
ISO: 3,200

Occasionally, I look down at my feet to see where I am standing, literally and figuratively as a reminder of the moment.  It helps me to recall specific things like the smell, or the sound.  This image was one of those moments with incredible unexpected atmosphere that I shared with dear friends Katerina Biliouri @biliouriful and Duncan @duncan.  But I also loved the muted colors and the form of this image.

 

Camera: Leica M9
Exposure: 1/750
Aperture: f/2
Focal Length: 35mm
ISO: 160

My friend and colleague Fatima Abbas @neurofim had just accepted a job offer from Genentech in San Francisco, so we set about going out to lunch to celebrate that.  I loved this image as I looked into Fatima’s face and all the stress that she had been experiencing over the previous few months had completely evaporated.  She looked truly happy and relaxed, and this image reflects that, I think… marking a moment in time of transition and optimism.  We don’t tell the story of those around us in science like this enough.  It is truly the little moments.

 

Camera: Leica Monochrom
Exposure: 1/250
Aperture: f/2
Focal Length: 50mm
ISO: 2,500

My colleague Ron Gregg and I had the chance to take a walk for coffee and discussion at a meeting in Southbridge Massachusetts.  I’ve wanted to shoot a formal portrait of him for years, but only managed snapshots.  This was somewhere in-between, but it totally works for me.  Time/place/person/discussion.

 

Camera: Leica Monochrom
Exposure: 1/250
Aperture: f/3.5
Focal Length: 21mm
ISO: 1,250

I liked this photo for the composition, the light, and the fact that Ellie is such a complete goofball.  As I walked into the house, I heard some messing around.  Looking up, I called her name and this face pops out from behind the bannister, as if to say… “Oh, hai!”.  It is also an image that reminds me of why I shoot in black and white so often. I get to think about light and form, without the complexity of color.

 

Camera: Leica SL2-S
Exposure: 1/125
Aperture: f/1.7
Focal Length: 35mm
ISO: 6,400

This photo captures the essence of the technician running our electron microscopes, Matt Berardy.  I walked into the electron microscopy suite to chat with Matt and he was looking particularly pleased and relaxed after a year of intense work and collaboration learning how to operate the electron microscopes.  It’s been a journey and a challenge getting up to speed so quickly, but I am so incredibly proud and pleased with where we’ve been able to get to this year.  The image documents Matt, and tells the story of his entry and participation in retinal and connectomics science.

 

Camera: Leica M9
Exposure: 1/250
Aperture: f/8
Focal Length: 18mm
ISO: 160

This photo was made while walking downtown running some errands prior to my 2nd international trip of the year and the 2nd international trip since the COVID pandemic began.  It’s also a reminder to always carry a camera with you… This of course is made easier with modern smartphones which have cameras capable of rendering truly stunning imagery.  But there is also no substitute for good optics, and the nuance that optical lens design provides.  This was a mirrorball on the police and safety building in downtown Salt Lake City. I first shot this with an iPhone, then ended up working this image for about 4 or five exposures with the Leica M9, rendering an image I was much happier with, complete with lens flares.  I love public art like this, and wish we had more of it here in America.

 

Camera: Leica M9
Exposure: 1/350
Aperture: f/7
Focal Length: 18mm
ISO: 160

This was one of those moments walking home from work where the light was gorgeous, and getting low on the horizon, the smell of autumn was in the air, and I was reflecting upon the year elapsed to that point, looking forward to the beginning of the holidays, and initiating planning to figure out the next steps in personal and professional matters.  There is a lot going on in my head with this image, but it is evocative for me.

 

Camera: Leica SL2-S
Exposure: 15 Sec.
Aperture: f/3.4
Focal Length: 21mm
ISO: 3,200

The Visionarium Meeting in Tvärminne, Finland is a glorious meeting.  I had the great opportunity to deliver an invited talk, but the experience felt constrained for reasons other than the meeting.  I was dealing with the fallout of losing the above mentioned grant, trying to figure out funding issues, a pile of other duties including study section, manuscripts to review and other meetings to prepare for, along with faculty interviews for candidates to the Moran Eye Center.  Normally, I would have flown out a day early here and walked around with a camera, taking it slow and easing into the meeting.  This image with planets and galaxies and constellations draped over the Baltic Sea was one of the first quiet moments in my head that I’d had in months, and the scene reflected that quiet moment of serenity for me.

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