2012 was the year of photographing people for me, 2013 is the year of better composition.
One of the ways to experiment is to take 20-30 photographs of one object. I happened upon this monument, Gay Liberation Monument, by George Segal, in New York City, last week – didn’t get to 20 photos, it was 18 degrees outside 
How can you not notice its human scale and the longing for “public comfort and freedom to which the gay liberation movement aspired.” This, especially during a time when this vulnerable population was clinging to life in the health system and in society.
The week prior, by coincidence, I happened to work with the Boy Scout Memorial, in Washington, DC, and the comparison is so stark.
The BSA monument has been in place in President’s Park since 1964. It was surveyed in 1993 and found to be “well maintained.”
The Gay Liberation monument was not as fortunate. It was destroyed and tortured in California, until it was liberated itself, to New York City, in 1992. Even then, it made a brave statement about equality and health that wasn’t imaginable until only recently, and in only a handful of urban centers.
Coincident and unrelated to my photographic adventure, they say that the Boy Scouts of America (@boyscouts) is rethinking its stance on promoting discrimination. It sounds like they are not there yet, though (see: Boy Scouts of America: Not Good Enough – Human Rights Campaign).
When I see both together, I see two, actually three, important things in the Segal sculpture that are just being realized 20 years later : (1) the only requirement to participate is that you are a human being, (2) equality equals health, (3) love always wins.
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