There is, quite obviously, much to be said about this year: the loss, the interrupted plans, the way there is still so much pain and uncertainty as the pandemic continues to rage on. In my own life there has been immense grief, joy, and change–I experienced the complete instability of my 10 year career, I started teaching, I moved in with my partner. Aside from the months-on-end at home feeling scared and alone, what sticks out to me most about this year has been the moments of group solidarity.

I think a lot about Emile Durkheim’s sociological concept of “collective effervescence” –that powerful and sacred feeling that happens when a community or society comes together to communicate the same thought and participate in the same action; bringing a sense of “something bigger than us”, unification to the group and a shifting away from a focus on oneself. Brene Brown beautifully expands on the ritual and importance of public, collective joy and collective grief in this essay.

I have spent the entirety of my career witnessing, cataloguing, and partaking in the power of collective joy. Standing in the sacred space of celebration and family and partnership, even if just for a few hours. Weekend after weekend, I experienced that interesting and magical microcosm that happens when people come together for the shared purpose of celebration. In a room of mostly strangers, I have been able to both see and feel the connection so intimately, so frequently, and so strongly that I’m often moved to tears.

Over the years, the amount to which I regularly experienced collective joy sometimes felt imbalanced compared to the grief and pain happening in the world or in the lives of myself and loved ones. The imbalance felt especially stark in March, when the world was shutting down and there was that shared sense of global anxiety, pain, and solidarity. I was in a car in Mexico City, anxiously reading an article about schools in LA closing when I received my first wedding postponement text for that weekend. It felt inconceivable at the time. Over the next month there was another, then four, then the whole year was pushed. I had photographed 6 weddings before the shutdown and I spent those first anxious weeks at home slowly sorting through photos from a time that already felt a million miles away. To absorb myself in the feeling of collective joy while the world in and around me was experiencing the intensity of fear and pain was, honestly, disorienting.

As I reflect back on the year, it was not just the obvious moments of group-feeling (large January weddings vs the beginning of the pandemic) and it is not just their contrast that sticks out. They don’t even feel as contrasted anymore–the highs and the lows blend together into this strong sense of connection. The morning after a wedding in Palm Springs, standing in line for coffee when the person in front of me gasped and shared the Kobe news from her phone and the entire room went silent. 11 weddings over the course of 2020 that I was able to witness– some pre-March and oblivious to how novel and foreign they would soon feel, many modified and rearranged. Black Lives Matter protests with millions across the world. Zoom graduations and funerals and weddings and holidays. Those first few weeks of the pandemic– the global solidarity I felt each morning when I woke up, checked the news, checked on friends, and it felt like everyone on earth was experiencing the exact same pain and fear simultaneously. The feeling in the air at the polls on November 6th and the scream from a stranger that echoed across a sculpture garden in New York a few days later–the moment I learned the election was called as the entire park erupted into cheers.

If anything, this year brought me the frustrating practice of presence–of waking up every day prepared for whatever it may bring. Learning to hold things–identities, plans, relationships, expectations—with an open hand. Knowing that I can be joyful one day and be overcome with depression the next. Practicing patience with myself and others as we wax and wane. Being present for the grief as it reveals itself and remaining present for and accepting of the joy and celebration as it comes. Realizing that both joy and pain live together: both linger, both flee, both connect, both evolve.

5 days into 2021 and not much has changed. The uncertainty is still there, the plans continue to be pushed out. Loved ones are sick, loved ones are engaged, loved ones are unemployed and in love and afraid and hopeful. I’m grateful for the joy I got to witness and experience with the folks below–it doesn’t feel far away, now. The photos bring me even closer to that sacred collective effervescence. I know we will do it again, in many small and large capacities, in “big” days and everyday ways, and I’m thankful for the reminder in a time where it sometimes felt hard to imagine.

Mixed together, photos for me and photos for others, here are some of the things I saw this year: