{"id":1809,"date":"2020-12-21T10:08:32","date_gmt":"2020-12-21T18:08:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/?p=1809"},"modified":"2026-08-30T22:23:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T05:23:44","slug":"my-home-our-home-your-playground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/my-home-our-home-your-playground\/","title":{"rendered":"My Home, Our Home, Your Playground"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Wally<\/span><\/div><\/div>

Wally Hawkins<\/h2><\/div>
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MY HOME, OUR HOME, YOUR PLAYGROUND<\/h1>\n

ONE PHOTOGRAPHER'S EYE ON LAS VEGAS IN LOCKDOWN<\/p>\n

By Stacey Gualandi<\/p>\n<\/div>

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If 2020 has taught us anything, it\u2019s 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\u2014and still is\u2014an ongoing, personal challenge.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

When Nevada forced a stay-at-home order in early March, the idea of full-time confinement wasn\u2019t viable for this Las Vegas resident. He says he needed a \u201cgreat escape.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be honest, I just couldn't stay home 24\/7,\u201d says Hawkins. \u201cIt was starting to bother me, literally and emotionally. It was bringing some demons to the surface.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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\u201cThat was not my intention,\u201d Hawkins says of chronicling history. \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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:\u00a0 The Strip without people; an iconic sign with no lines; casino doors with locks and chains.<\/p>\n

One photo soon led to hundreds and (hopefully) a once-in-a-lifetime story was born.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was completely empty in the very beginning,\u201d says Hawkins. \u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>

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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\u2026and myself.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople started to depend on me and my pictures, literally, because back then they weren't going out,\u201d admits Hawkins. \u201cSo 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Hawkins is now proud to unveil \u201cMy Home, Our Home, Your Playground: Lockdown to New Normal<\/em>,\u201d a cathartic and authentic retelling of one photographer\u2019s journey through quarantine.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s filled with a chronological timeline; over a hundred black-and-white and color images; and chapters that breakdown the city\u2019s traumatic transformation from bleak to beautiful.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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\u201cThe 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,\u201d says Hawkins. \u201cIt shows how we are as humans and how we can handle really tough things and come out the other side.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>

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\"Freemont<\/span><\/div>
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As he writes in the book\u2019s introduction, Hawkins hopes his pictures bring everyone as much joy as he found in taking them. To be honest, I, for one, couldn\u2019t have coped during COVID without them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is for everybody here,\u201d says Hawkins. \u201cI hope it doesn't bring back bad memories. They will see how the high school graduation was a little different this year; they\u2019ll see boards on the glass doors; they'll see chains on door handles. But it\u2019s just history that we all lived through.\u201d<\/p>\n

To get a copy of \u201cMy Home, Our Home, Your Playground\u201d, please visit wallyhawkins.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>

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If 2020 has taught us anything, it\u2019s 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\u2014and still is\u2014an 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. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1814,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4522,2360],"tags":[819,2870,267,3248,2816,3250,605,707,3247,3249],"class_list":["post-1809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-and-culture","category-blog","tag-books","tag-covid-19","tag-las-vegas","tag-las-vegas-strip","tag-nevada","tag-photobook","tag-photographer","tag-photography","tag-the-strip","tag-wally-hawkins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1809"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11437,"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1809\/revisions\/11437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}