The Occupy Portraits: A Photo Essay

Awoke still so tired and sore from the making of Occupy portraits at the NATO protests three days ago. Photographed nearly seventy portraits of groups and individuals while march- ing eight miles through the streets of Chicago. Stooping and bending and weaving while walking and photographing, and with zero sleep the first day. Afraid to ask the boss for the day off for yet another Occupy shoot, I worked at the photo lab 10-6 on Saturday, flying out of Los Angeles at 11:30 that night, followed by a subway ride straight from the airport at 6 a.m. into an empty downtown. Empty, except for pods of police preparing for their day, and groups of NATO soldiers, wearing their pressed dress uniforms, berets tilted to the side, briskly walking with their briefcases. Small groups of protestors began to appear, looking at their maps, armed with sun hats and water bottles, and wearing t-shirts with slogans and buttons with phrases like, “SCREW US – WE MULTIPLY,” or “I’M NOT DUMB ENOUGH YET – REMIND ME AGAIN WHY WE’RE AT WAR.” Such a difficult scenario in which to create portraits. A marching crowd, surrounded on all sides, every few feet, by menacing police on a mission, and more media coverage and people with cameras than can be imagined – an estimated 3,000 protestors and 3,000 police, all crammed into a confined area and on a strict timeline, under threat of arrest, or worse. Two protestors I photographed were beaten by cops – one with 5 staples at the top of his skull after being struck by a police baton for peacefully protesting outside the Chicago Art Institute where NATO hosted a dinner. The same protest where a professional photographer with an official press pass was struck with police clubs in the back, as well as on his camera. Yet another protestor with media credentials whom I photographed had been held with his team and interrogated for hours days before the protest – much of their gear confiscated or broken by the police, who promised them violence at the upcoming permitted march – all of this recorded live-stream on video, unbeknownst to the cops, and broadcast on the internet in real time. “We’ll be looking for you,” promised the police, while the whole world really was watching . Suddenly the police vanished as mysteriously as they had appeared, with no for- mal charges ever being made against the media team they’d been tormenting.