I don’t hear about much before it’s happening.
I gave up on Facebook just as the Boomers were boarding, and my darling Millennials breached the engine room.
I had a date. As we firmed plans, she mentioned this Bernie Sanders & César Chávez rally, just a mile and a half from my house. I grabbed my camera. She didn’t make it till mid-afternoon, which was perfect, since I wanted to give her all my attention, anyway. We can all guess how that went.
I never know how to photograph crowds. Even less how to photograph marches. There’s so much happening, with no predefined center. And since you’re moving all the time, framing is a huge challenge. I walked, and looked for what I thought represented the event. There were signs for most progressive groups and causes in town, and a lot of the usual players. I ran into several friends I hadn’t seen in ages.
Many people covered the Cesar Chavez rally, from many angles.
But no one stopped the march, muscled my camera away, stood in my spot, pointed where I was pointing, and parroted my settings. So I’m confident you haven’t seen these before.
Two things caught my eye. First, there were so many people of color. It was smart of the Sanders campaign to link arms with the Chávez rally, though I can’t imagine Dolores Huerta is thrilled about it. It was moving refreshing to be on the street in a group less than 90% white. I wanted to document that.
The second was the watchers. It’s so easy to get lost in the energy of protesting; you’re very literally in a bubble. We walked through Barelas both ways, down 4th Street, and back on 8th—a few steps from a lot of front doors, where a lot of people watched, feeling whatever they were feeling. I wonder what they saw.