Jun 14, 2025
On June 14, I was walking the streets of Anaconda making photographs—homes, infrastructure, small visual notes on place. It was quiet work, solitary. As I passed Kennedy Commons Park, I noticed a veteran’s memorial—and a man sitting quietly in the shade. I kept walking at first. But something in me said: go back.
I crossed the street and approached the man, instinctively putting my camera away as I got closer.
He greeted me warmly. His name was Mike Blume, a Vietnam veteran from Anaconda. He had zip-tied cardboard signs to the memorial: NO KINGS—part of the national No Kings Day protest, opposing presidential overreach and authoritarianism. We talked about his service, about his anger with the government, about the names on the memorial wall—his friends’, his father’s, and his own.
After a few minutes, I asked if I could make his portrait. This is not something I’m always comfortable doing, but I knew I had to. He didn’t hesitate—cracked a joke about breaking my camera—and stood calmly in front of the wall, beside the names he came to honor.
I made one frame. That was enough.
It was a moment layered with dissonance: the weight of memory and protest, the seriousness of his cause, the lightness of our interaction. Something about the clarity and timing of this moment —his gesture, the timing, the trust—moved me.