MY HOME, OUR HOME, YOUR PLAYGROUND

ONE PHOTOGRAPHER’S EYE ON LAS VEGAS IN LOCKDOWN

By Stacey Gualandi

If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that we all had to get through a global pandemic with no end in sight. Everyone is different and finding coping mechanisms to manage our way through quarantine-to-new normal was—and still is—an ongoing, personal challenge.

For Wally Hawkins, a professional photographer (and full disclosure: long-time friend!), taking pictures has always been a Zen experience; a way to avoid distraction; and a method to clear his mind.

When Nevada forced a stay-at-home order in early March, the idea of full-time confinement wasn’t viable for this Las Vegas resident. He says he needed a “great escape.”

“To be honest, I just couldn’t stay home 24/7,” says Hawkins. “It was starting to bother me, literally and emotionally. It was bringing some demons to the surface.”

So with camera in tow, Hawkins began documenting his beloved hometown in lockdown. Turning his lens on Las Vegas became a form of therapy as he captured stark-yet-historical images of a pandemic in real time.

“That was not my intention,” Hawkins says of chronicling history. “I just wanted my pictures to tell a story. I do all my pictures based on how I feel and if I feel it’s right, I’m stopping and shooting.”

Several times a week over the next 5 months, he would drive to The Strip, downtown, or surrounding valley locations and take pictures of a town normally teeming with tourists turned into a town-in-turmoil:  The Strip without people; an iconic sign with no lines; casino doors with locks and chains.

One photo soon led to hundreds and (hopefully) a once-in-a-lifetime story was born.

“It was completely empty in the very beginning,” says Hawkins. “The only people on The Strip besides myself were police and security making sure nobody was going to break into the casinos, so I would go out and shoot all of that, just to capture something that hopefully we will never see again.”

Throughout this time, Hawkins also posted his pandemic pics to social media. What began as a way to personally cope with COVID-19, inadvertently became a form of therapy for others…and myself.

“People started to depend on me and my pictures, literally, because back then they weren’t going out,” admits Hawkins. “So I was essentially relaying to everybody what’s happening in an artistic way. They shared comments how it was making them feel to see the pictures, and they were very happy that I was doing that.”

Not only did he catch the eye of his Facebook followers, but also a publicist, who suggested he compile his photo collection into what ultimately led to a coffee table book deal.

Hawkins is now proud to unveil “My Home, Our Home, Your Playground: Lockdown to New Normal,” a cathartic and authentic retelling of one photographer’s journey through quarantine.

It’s filled with a chronological timeline; over a hundred black-and-white and color images; and chapters that breakdown the city’s traumatic transformation from bleak to beautiful.

“The book evolves from that eerie super grim, scary, depressing beginning, where it literally felt like zombies should be walking down the Strip, and then it evolves to people walking their dogs, running and riding their bikes,” says Hawkins. “It shows how we are as humans and how we can handle really tough things and come out the other side.”

As he writes in the book’s introduction, Hawkins hopes his pictures bring everyone as much joy as he found in taking them. To be honest, I, for one, couldn’t have coped during COVID without them.

“This is for everybody here,” says Hawkins. “I hope it doesn’t bring back bad memories. They will see how the high school graduation was a little different this year; they’ll see boards on the glass doors; they’ll see chains on door handles. But it’s just history that we all lived through.”

To get a copy of “My Home, Our Home, Your Playground”, please visit wallyhawkins.com