Cooper-Young in the Cold

Memphis in December has a particular quality to it, bare trees against deep blue sky, holiday decorations catching the cold light, the city going about its business with the warmth it always seems to carry. The Cooper-Young and Overton Square neighborhoods wear the season well, a mix of the reverent and the playful, the historic and the handmade, all of it sitting comfortably side by side the way Memphis tends to do.

The album moves through a lot of what makes these two neighborhoods worth knowing. A nativity display outside a church reframes the story with signs about refugees and open hearts. The Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center flies its flag and its rainbow Christmas trees without apology. The Overton Square mural wraps an entire building in the color and chaos of the neighborhood it depicts. Young Avenue Deli has Buddy the Elf in the window. The I Love Memphis wall, cracked and faded, says what it says. And the Slider Inn sits quiet, waiting for the crowd that will inevitably come back.

Galloway Methodist Church stopped me. The Romanesque arches, the bell tower, the worn iron railings on those stone steps, it holds its age well. Johnny Cash played there, which feels right for a building that looks like it has heard things. I was living in Memphis by this point, these were my neighborhoods now, and there is something different about photographing a place you have claimed as home. You stop looking for what makes it interesting and start seeing what makes it yours.