Another 52 Weeks — #1
New year, more photos — plus a look ahead at an exciting project for 2025
With the calendar turning to 2025, it’s time for “Another 52 Weeks.”
My weekly photo series is back for a second year, and like a number of sequels, I’m playing it somewhat safe while hoping there are no diminishing returns. Fingers crossed.
You still will receive the posts with seven random images from my archive each Saturday morning. Sometimes I’ll write a short essay. Occasionally, at the suggestion of readers, the photos will be around a theme. In every case, as with every photo, each one has a story.
Here is this week’s set. After scrolling through, I hope you’ll keep reading to learn more about my plans for 2025.
A Look Ahead
What’s happening this year?
Well, I turn 60 in less than two weeks, for starters. The 50s, much like every decade preceding them, were another series of transitions — children moving out of the house, two marriages, two grandchildren, a pandemic. Things like that.
I’m sure the 60s have more unforeseen transitions in store, but in the meantime, I have a couple of bucket list goals I want to meet. And since January/February generally are slow months on the freelance front, I have the time to turn my attention to them now.
Keep Your Distance
This is the cover of my first photo book, “Keep Your Distance,” a look back at the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Work started on this project last January, as a group of 15 writers and photographers — many of them Substack collaborators — helped whittle down more than 1,500 images taken as I walked more than 4,000 miles from March 2020 to March 2021.
During those walks, mostly in Alexandria but also in Washington, D.C., New York City, and Richmond Va., I carried an iPhone and attempted to capture what I saw during a historic and very tumultuous time. Along the way, I wrote a “Social Distancing Diary” that included observations about what was taking place in our family, our city, and our country.
The challenge, as both a photographer and writer, is deciding how to package my work. On one hand, “writer me” (the more experienced one) wanted to include the narrative; “photographer me” (the less experienced one) thought the images should stand on their own. Other photographers, as well as a number of art world types who could help promote/sell said book, told “writer me” to go away.
As the year started getting busy, I struggled with what to do, ultimately putting the project on the shelf (figuratively speaking). But it was never far from my mind. After the 2024 election and as memories of the pandemic start to recede with the fifth anniversary approaching, I decided it was time to resurrect it.
Now, “Keep Your Distance” is strictly a photo book, with a short prologue and epilogue as the only narrative. It will be finished later this month, and I hope to take pre-orders for a print edition as well as an e-book by early February (if not sooner).
Meanwhile, starting in March and continuing for 12 months, I’m planning monthly posts that include the diary entries as well as photos that do not make it into the book. (“Writer me” is happy about this.)
I hope you will consider supporting this project.
Other Projects
I also hope to work on a “Conversations” series with some of my favorite authors and am at a series of memoir-style pieces that are true to the spirit of “Our Reality Show” while focusing on some significant events of my six decades on this planet.
Given the uncertainty of the freelance writing/photography world, I’m also looking for ways to bring in a little extra income, always with the proviso that I will pay at least some of it forward.
If you’re interested in purchasing a print of any of the photos you see here or on my SmugMug website (http://glenncookphotos.com), please don’t hesitate to reach out.
I came close to meeting my unstated goal of 500 subscribers in 2024 and think it will be reached this year. Meanwhile, if you have the desire and means to do so, I hope you’ll consider upgrading to a paid subscription and consider sharing my work with your friends.
“Our Reality Show” is and will continue to be free without a paywall, but the support I received from a number of you in 2024 was heartwarming and gratifying. It helped out a deserving nonprofit as well, as I donated $250 of the subscription proceeds to Metropolitan School of the Arts, a local organization our family has been affiliated with for more than two decades.
Thank you again for your support of “Our Reality Show.” Here’s to a happy, exciting, and productive 2025.
You always make it hard, but the marbles swept me away!
I’m glad you’re continuing with your 52’s. I really enjoy your posts