A year of hope and resilience, in photos

From vaccine rollouts to protests and celebrations, images show a community coping with the pandemic

Freshman Rebecca Fakatou prepares her paint pallet in an art class taught over Zoom at Palo Alto High School on March 10. After moving from the purple tier to the less restrictive red tier in the state's color-coded reopening plan, Santa Clara County opened schools for in-person learning on March 9. Students were able to return to campuses to take classes over Zoom with others who continued to learn remotely. Photo by Magali Gauthier.

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A year of hope and resilience, in photos

From vaccine rollouts to protests and celebrations, images show a community coping with the pandemic

Freshman Rebecca Fakatou prepares her paint pallet in an art class taught over Zoom at Palo Alto High School on March 10. After moving from the purple tier to the less restrictive red tier in the state's color-coded reopening plan, Santa Clara County opened schools for in-person learning on March 9. Students were able to return to campuses to take classes over Zoom with others who continued to learn remotely. Photo by Magali Gauthier.

by Magali Gauthier / Palo Alto Weekly

Uploaded: Fri, Dec 31, 2021, 8:05 am 0
Time to read: about 2 minutes

As chief visual journalist at the Palo Alto Weekly, one of my earliest assignments of 2021 was to photograph seniors in East Palo Alto receiving their vaccinations against COVID-19. That moment was a turning point in my coverage of the pandemic: Knowing that the vulnerable people I was photographing were now protected from the deadly virus felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

I had spent most of the previous year fearing that I could catch, carry and spread the virus without knowing it.

While I no longer methodically sanitized my camera equipment and showered and changed my clothes at the end of each work day, I continued double masking wherever I went, and the majority of my shoots remained outdoors.

A heron wades in the shallow waters of the Lexington Reservoir in Los Gatos on July 7. At the time, the reservoir was only approximately 25% full. On July 8, Gov. Gavin Newsom asks Californians to voluntarily cut their water use by 15% as extreme drought persisted throughout the state for the second consecutive year. (A month earlier, Santa Clara Valley Water District instituted a 15% mandatory reduction in water use among its customers.) Photo by Magali Gauthier.

By the start of May, I had completed my two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which allowed me into spaces and situations I hadn't been in for over a year. I now felt safe photographing hundreds of people marching through downtown Palo Alto demanding an end to hate crimes against the Asian American and Pacific Islander community. And I was allowed into a retirement community to capture residents hugging their children and grandchildren for the first time since the start of the pandemic.

In the second half of the year after California reopened, some of my coverage began diverging from the pandemic-related news stories that had dominated the past 16 months as businesses, local governments and people shifted their attention to other issues. I scaled the sides of local reservoirs with a telephoto lens and a drone to photograph the dire local drought conditions. I photographed two entrepreneurs crafting beer recipes out of one of their garages.

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Life almost seemed back to normal.

Things aren't back to the way they were, obviously, and it feels like the "new normal" (excuse the overused phrase) may actually be upon us. We're living in a world where there is a constant threat of new COVID-19 variants, such as omicron, but in which we've adapted to and are able to do many of the things we did pre-pandemic.

These images illustrate how our community has come back together over the last 12 months to celebrate, learn, protest, mourn and innovate. Take a look.

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Emiliano Preciado receives the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine from registered nurse Jill Vandroff at Ravenswood Family Health Center in East Palo Alto on Jan. 30. Santa Clara and San Mateo counties started vaccinating medical professionals and residents of long-term care facilities during the first phase of the vaccine rollout at the end of 2020. By the end of January, eligibility was expanded to people ages 75 and older, and workers in education, child care, emergency services, food and agriculture; Gov. Gavin Newsom addresses reporters on new state legislation that would provide $6.6 billion to incentivize school districts to resume in-person instruction at Barron Park Elementary in Palo Alto on March 2. The governor praised the Palo Alto Unified School District as a model that proves schools throughout the state can reopen safely. Photos by Magali Gauthier.

Members of the Stanford University women's basketball team wave as they parade through Palo Alto on April 5 in celebration of their NCAA tournament win on April 4. Photo by Magali Gauthier.

After marching along University through downtown Palo Alto, hundreds of protesters listen to speakers decry the rising trend in attacks on the Asian American and Pacific Islander community outside Palo Alto City Hall on May 2; Solveig Brodsky hugs her daughter, Sonja Houssels, at Moldaw Residences in Palo Alto on May 5. The retirement community held the event for residents to reunite with their families for the first time since the pandemic shutdown in March 2020. Photos by Magali Gauthier.

Masked graduates sit socially distanced on the Viking Stadium field during graduation at Palo Alto High School on June 2. The event marked the return of in-person graduation ceremonies, which had been put on hold at local high schools the previous year. Photo by Magali Gauthier.

Dayna Chung waits in the observation area with her children, Ana Chung, 16, and Aaron Chung, 13, after they receive their first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at Cesar Chavez Ravenswood Middle School in East Palo Alto on May 15. San Mateo County began offering COVID-19 vaccinations to residents ages 12 to 15 years old on May 13. Photo by Daniela Beltran B.; Children dance as Andy Z performs at the Magical Bridge playground in Mitchell Park in Palo Alto on July 23. The event attracted about 160 masked and unmasked parents and children at the playground that afternoon for the second community concert of the summer following California's reopening on June 15. Photos by Magali Gauthier.

Patti Irish returns to her seat after speaking at Sarah Johnson's celebration of life ceremony at the First Presbyterian Church of Palo Alto on July 17. Johnson died of COVID-19 complications on April 18, 2020. Her family, who flew in from different states for the memorial, had postponed services until it felt safe to gather again. The celebration marked the church's first indoor gathering since closing its doors 16 months earlier due to the pandemic. Photo by Magali Gauthier.

Kindergartners head to class on the first day of school at Los Robles-Ronald McNair Academy in East Palo Alto on Aug. 25. This marked the first time since the start of the pandemic that the campus had reopened full-time to all students. Some students had returned to campus the previous winter in small, stable cohorts; Zookeeper Loree Lee Harper watches as a meerkat suns its belly at the Junior Museum and Zoo in Palo Alto. The zoo reopened on Nov. 12 after two years of construction. It was designed with a focus on accessibility for visitors of all mental and physical abilities, said Executive Director John Aikin, during a media visit on Oct. 28. Photos by Magali Gauthier.

RiSean "Bookie" Tinsley, right, and Denzel Jackson begin brewing grains to make beer outside Tinsley's home in East Palo Alto on Oct. 17. The duo said their goal was to open a microbrewery and taproom in East Palo Alto. "This is my hometown," Jackson said. "Understanding craft beer and sharing craft beer with our community, it's a new frontier for us." Photo by Magali Gauthier.

Palo Alto Online is taking one last look at 2021 all this week. If you missed any parts of our series, see the links below:

• In a year marked by rapid adjustments, Palo Alto advanced some key goals but fell short on others

• Local education leaders look back on 2021

• A peek back at the top 10 most-read stories in Palo Alto over the past 12 months

• Can you ace this 21-question quiz about 2021 local news?

• 2021: How it started, how it's ending

Magali Gauthier
   
Magali Gauthier captures photos and videos for the Palo Alto Weekly, the Mountain View Voice and The Almanac newspapers. She runs the Voice's and the Almanac's Instagram accounts. Read more >>

Follow Palo Alto Online and the Palo Alto Weekly on Twitter @paloaltoweekly, Facebook and on Instagram @paloaltoonline for breaking news, local events, photos, videos and more.

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Join

A year of hope and resilience, in photos

From vaccine rollouts to protests and celebrations, images show a community coping with the pandemic

by Magali Gauthier / Palo Alto Weekly

Uploaded: Fri, Dec 31, 2021, 8:05 am

As chief visual journalist at the Palo Alto Weekly, one of my earliest assignments of 2021 was to photograph seniors in East Palo Alto receiving their vaccinations against COVID-19. That moment was a turning point in my coverage of the pandemic: Knowing that the vulnerable people I was photographing were now protected from the deadly virus felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

I had spent most of the previous year fearing that I could catch, carry and spread the virus without knowing it.

While I no longer methodically sanitized my camera equipment and showered and changed my clothes at the end of each work day, I continued double masking wherever I went, and the majority of my shoots remained outdoors.

By the start of May, I had completed my two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which allowed me into spaces and situations I hadn't been in for over a year. I now felt safe photographing hundreds of people marching through downtown Palo Alto demanding an end to hate crimes against the Asian American and Pacific Islander community. And I was allowed into a retirement community to capture residents hugging their children and grandchildren for the first time since the start of the pandemic.

In the second half of the year after California reopened, some of my coverage began diverging from the pandemic-related news stories that had dominated the past 16 months as businesses, local governments and people shifted their attention to other issues. I scaled the sides of local reservoirs with a telephoto lens and a drone to photograph the dire local drought conditions. I photographed two entrepreneurs crafting beer recipes out of one of their garages.

Life almost seemed back to normal.

Things aren't back to the way they were, obviously, and it feels like the "new normal" (excuse the overused phrase) may actually be upon us. We're living in a world where there is a constant threat of new COVID-19 variants, such as omicron, but in which we've adapted to and are able to do many of the things we did pre-pandemic.

These images illustrate how our community has come back together over the last 12 months to celebrate, learn, protest, mourn and innovate. Take a look.

Palo Alto Online is taking one last look at 2021 all this week. If you missed any parts of our series, see the links below:

• In a year marked by rapid adjustments, Palo Alto advanced some key goals but fell short on others

• Local education leaders look back on 2021

• A peek back at the top 10 most-read stories in Palo Alto over the past 12 months

• Can you ace this 21-question quiz about 2021 local news?

• 2021: How it started, how it's ending

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