Listen to Eze’s Story

“Every night I get there, the candles were lit. And I was always wondering, who does this? Who comes here night after night to keep the candles burning?”

- Eze Amos

Eze Amos 

Hi. My name is Eze Amos. I'm a photojournalist here in Charlottesville. This photo brings back a lot of memories for me following the events of August 11 and 12, 2017. I kept going back to the to the to the spot where Heather Heyer was killed on Fourth Street for for many reasons. One of one of them being that I just want a photograph. I just want to document how the community was moving on, how the community was coping with this. And to to gauge that, Fourth Street was a good place to do that because you see people come there night after night just sitting down there, some crying, some just just reading, actually, some people do all sorts of things, but just sit out there and just spend time. I met a lot of people there, I made a lot of friends on Fourth Street. One thing I noticed, I kept noticing every night was that the candles were lit. Every night I get there, the candles were lit. And I was always wondering, who does this? Who comes here night after night to keep the candles burning? And and one evening, I think this was in September 2017, I was lucky enough to to run into the person who has been doing this. Or maybe she's just one of the people that has been doing this. And, of course, I jumped to take that opportunity and photograph her. She looked at me, we made eye contact, and she just went on doing her thing. For me as a street photographer, that is the approval I needed to photograph her. She looked at me, I looked at her, and she just kept on doing her thing. I think she even gave a little smile and I photographed her, I took several photos, but this one in particular did it for me. I feel this represents everything we are as a community. Showing up, keeping the fire burning, going out there, cleaning the space that this happened, just doing everything we could to just show the world that we are a community of caring people, loving people. The events of 2017 has changed our community and has changed it in ways that I cannot even imagine. But. But we are moving on. We are. We are a better place, in spite of that, we are better people in spite of what happened. And, you know, I wish the world, the rest of the world can see that, that what this lady is doing is kind of what we are as a community. We look out for each other. I don't know her name. But if anybody out there knows her, tell her to, you know, hit me up. I'd like to share this photo with her. Yeah, this is a community of love, and I'm so happy to be doing this five years later. We're still going strong, Charlottesville. Let's do it.

Music credit: Alan Ellis / A New Tomorrow / courtesy of www.epidemicsound.com