Santa Clarita Valley Tea Party

PeterGar · April 17, 2009

It's been ages since I posted on Dgrin... I'm a pro wedding photog and shoot documentary style. I've been wanting to get out and do some serious non-wedding documentary shooting and I saw the SCV Tea Party as a good opportunity to get out and cover it. So here's my first serious attempt at a documentary shoot of a public event.

First, I have to say the opinions of the protesters are not my opinions and I approached this demonstration with impartiallity. Since I'm an Obama supporter and there a lot of anti-Obama sentiment, I found myself frowning at some of the messages I read and heard.

Shot with a Canon 20D and 30D mostly with EF 16-35mm f/2.8L USM and 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM. I used my 70-200mm f/2.8L USM for a few shots, but not much. I did post in Lightroom 1.4 and found that using a preset I have that emulates Kodak Porta BW film gave the photos the BW look I wanted. I applied the preset and did some exposure and tone level adjustments as I saw fit.

The gallery can be found at here. Here's some highlights. C&C appreciated.

Tacoma

Death Among Us

Tyranny

Reap

Colonial

Where It's At

POOP

Death and Taxes

Family and Friends

Enough

Lipstick

The Ism Lady

The Answer

Let The Hear

Wave

Hannity Fans

Councilman Kellar

No You Can't

Free Men Dying

OPM

Shoes (one of my most favorites)

Environmentalist

California

BofA

Reaganomics

(socialism)

Tea and Pitchforks

American Gothic I

American Gothic II

en Espanol

Vaseline

Five-O

Days

Statue of Liberty

Bow Wow Wow

Tail

Tea Collar

Taxifornication

Romans 13:1-7 (I)

Romans 13:1-7 (II)

Old Glory

Flags

Suburban Homesick Blues

E I D ro

Fearing Liberals Instead

Flag, Sun, Hand

Flared-up Kid (probably my very favorite)

Kids

Family Fun

Liars and Thieves

Down the Street

Your [sic] Fired

Outraged

Slavery

Politicians Suck

Cheating

Steelers

250 Stars and 65 Stripes (another high favorite)

Pirates

OBAM

Thanks for looking and sharing your thoughts on the photos (not the politics). :-)

T. Bombadil · April 17, 2009

lot o' photo s :-)
Wow! lot of photos.

from what little i understand of documentary photography, i think you've done a nice job. you captured many signs in a way that can be read and got many faces - which seems to me not to have been the case with one or two of the other such threads about "tea parties".

did members of the crowd interact with you? it certainly seems that you got close enough for that to have been possible - and i think getting close to the action paid off in the photos.

i like the "Tyranny" image with the flag a lot. i'm wondering if the b&w conversion could be done in such a way as to darken the red stripes of the flag just a bit (add to the looming doom of the sign's message, maybe?).

about b&w . . . is that the most common documentary style? it seems that we are seeing (correction, i have seen - maybe here, maybe on another forum) lots of tea parties captured in b&w. i don't remember seeing other types of protests portrayed this way so often. not saying you should or shouldn't do b&w, just wondering if it was a conscious decision or is typical, or just fit the grim topic.

PeterGar wrote:

First, I have to say the opinions of the protesters are not my opinions and I approached this demonstration with impartiallity. Since I'm an Obama supporter and there a lot of anti-Obama sentiment, I found myself frowning at some of the messages I read and heard.
. . .
Thanks for looking and sharing your thoughts on the photos (not the politics). :-)

i have to say that i wish you hadn't indicated your personal feelings. i would rather be in the dark about a PJ or documentary photographer's opinions (or maybe more to the point have the images tell me what i need to know in that regard). i'm sure you didn't mean it this way, but it also can feel (a little) to the reader that you're sort of saying "here's what i think, but don't tell me what you think."

dgrin is a great place, not least because there aren't any flame wars. my personal view is that everyone (original posters, and repliers) should be careful to avoid stirring the pot.

PeterGar · April 17, 2009

Thanks Bruce. My approach was to shoot it like I do weddings... extreme focal lengths. I had two bodies, one with the 70-200mm and one with the 16-35. That way, I could either shoot candidly from a distance with the long lens and get right in there up close and personal and shoot from the waist and other off angles with the wide lens. I have no problem approaching people and asking for a shot or even just getting in their space with a warm smile and a respectful word to get the close shot. Some of the subjects assumed I was with the media and approached me ask me to shoot them, such as the American Gothic couple and a few others. I'm glad they did.

I'll see if I can bring down the high tones in Tyranny to see the details of the flag more. I had a problem getting the flag's tone the way I wanted it, but I might be able to tinker with it more. I agree, the flag needs to look darker.

I converted to BW because my inspiration as I went to this Tea Party was the photography of Cartier-Bresson. As I was editing in both color and BW, I noticed that color was taking away so many little elements of the photo. BW forces me to look into the photo more and see more emotion and little details that color just robbed them of this. After doing a couple dozen edits in color and BW, I decided that I would force myself to do the entire thing in BW using the same Kodak Portra BW action as if I shot this event on a film camera using that film. That was part of the fun of this shoot.

You raise a good point about me mentioning my politics in my post. I debated whether I should have or not. Basically, I have no education in journalism and really enjoy the subject. Since this was my first time covering a political event, I also experienced something new for me from the emotional level (isn't emotion the reason we're photographers in the first place?). How do I as an aspiring photojournalist find myself covering subjects that are not in line with my worldview without being disturbed to some level? It's a very real ethical frustration that I'm sure journalism textbooks cover. But alas, I'm on Dgrin and not in journalism school. ;-)

rutt · April 17, 2009

Very nice series. The one you titled "The Answer" captured my eye more than once, so I think it's well composed and captures something well.

I also covered one of these events with a documentary style See my post.

In the documentary tradition, you have to be honest about your own position, since there is no such thing as objectivity. By giving the viewer your position, s/he can factor it out to some extent. But the question is just how to do this. You did it directly in the text. You can also do it in your images, at least you can sometimes if you are good enough and lucky enough. And sometimes it doesn't matter. I think your images are fairly neutral. My images show more anger on the part of the demonstrators, which perhaps reveals a little more of my position.

In fact, this anger is a little deceptive. I found the event surprisingly good natured. There were some angry signs (one about Barney Frank was X rated and I decided not to post it.) The speakers at the open mic competed with each other to project resolute righteousness. And there were occasional chants of "Hang Barney Frank." But all in all, it was tame compared to other demonstrations I have attended with my camera.

rutt · April 17, 2009

Oh, and see this post for a B&W conversion idea which is working for me and which will probably work for you as well.

T. Bombadil · April 18, 2009

PeterGar wrote:

I have no problem approaching people and asking for a shot or even just getting in their space with a warm smile and a respectful word to get the close shot . . .

that's a good skill to have. i'm sure my own reluctance to even be noticed with a camera probably ends up just making me look creepy. needless to say, i haven't done any photography that involves captures of people i don't know . . . maybe someday . . .

PeterGar wrote:

I converted to BW because my inspiration as I went to this Tea Party was the photography of Cartier-Bresson. As I was editing in both color and BW, I noticed that color was taking away so many little elements of the photo.

interesting. it makes sense - many of these scenes would be quite "busy" in color.

PeterGar wrote:

You raise a good point about me mentioning my politics in my post. I debated whether I should have or not. . . . Since this was my first time covering a political event, I also experienced something new for me from the emotional level (isn't emotion the reason we're photographers in the first place?). How do I as an aspiring photojournalist find myself covering subjects that are not in line with my worldview without being disturbed to some level? It's a very real ethical frustration that I'm sure journalism textbooks cover. . . .

i agree, emotion is a/the reason for much of photography. it must have moved you. just being near a group of people who are energized about a shared passion would be moving. add to that the emotions it raises in you (whether excitement at agreement or disturbance/annoyance in opposition) at seeing them would certainly have an effect.

now you have me wondering what it would be like to photograph people involved in a natural disaster or war (a setting where everyone would be opposed to what they were seeing, even if they thought it necessary). in that case, how would you motivate yourself to keep shooting? not sure i could.

T. Bombadil · April 18, 2009

rutt wrote:

In the documentary tradition, you have to be honest about your own position, since there is no such thing as objectivity.

i can't argue with you about what is or is not "in the documentary tradition", since i don't know. but i have to disagree with "there is no such thing as objectivity". we might not always achieve it, but shouldn't we always aspire to objectivity when doing something called "documentary" work?

rutt wrote:

My images show more anger on the part of the demonstrators, which perhaps reveals a little more of my position.
. . .
In fact, this anger is a little deceptive. I found the event surprisingly good natured. There were some angry signs (one about Barney Frank was X rated and I decided not to post it.) The speakers at the open mic competed with each other to project resolute righteousness. And there were occasional chants of "Hang Barney Frank." But all in all, it was tame compared to other demonstrations I have attended with my camera.

you say your images show more anger, but it was tame compared to other demonstrations you have photographed. did you show as much anger in images of those other events? did you tone them down because they concerned ideas with which you agreed?

if so, doesn't that make your images an editorial, and not a documentary effort? does the term "documentary" get used to mean a style of photography that might be employed for artistic/editorial purposes, or does it mean to document the reality? i've seen photo-journalists (are they different?) talk about not doing _any_ pixel editing, but it seems to me that the relative anger of a crowd could, in some cases, be more important than, say, the exact placement of a particular sign or what have you.

(btw, i'm asking these questions respectfully. not trying to hassle you - just pondering the issue. with my apologies to the OP if this is a tangent).

rutt · April 18, 2009

T. Bombadil wrote:

i can't argue with you about what is or is not "in the documentary tradition", since i don't know. but i have to disagree with "there is no such thing as objectivity". we might not always achieve it, but shouldn't we always aspire to objectivity when doing something called "documentary" work?

Maybe there is such a thing as objectivity, but in "the documentary tradition" it is a truism that there is no such thing. Read Robert Coles' Doing Documentary Work for the mainstream position on this. I was really talking about the tradition which holds that there is no such thing as objectivity, only honesty. That leads to a certain style of presentation, which is a big part of this tradition. Maybe it should be called Documentary Photography because it really refers to a particular tradition as opposed to the function of the photography.

T. Bombadil wrote:

you say your images show more anger, but it was tame compared to other demonstrations you have photographed. did you show as much anger in images of those other events? did you tone them down because they concerned ideas with which you agreed?

I wasn't really clear about what I think was going on. The crowd was very good natured and the event did seem tame. But when people got up to speak, they became very intense and angry. They stepped down from the soapbox and smiled, shook hands, slapped backs. I wish I had a pair of shots to show this, the same person on and off the soapbox. I think it's sort of in the tradition of a certain kind of talk radio, very angry speech as entertainment delivered with a healthy dose of humor. That would make sense, since the host in Boston is Michael Graham who is exactly this sort of talk show host.

T. Bombadil wrote:

i've seen photo-journalists (are they different?) talk about not doing _any_ pixel editing, but it seems to me that the relative anger of a crowd could, in some cases, be more important than, say, the exact placement of a particular sign or what have you.

For both PJ and documentary photography, pixel editing is a no-no.

T. Bombadil · April 18, 2009

rutt wrote:

Maybe there is such a thing as objectivity, but in "the documentary tradition" it is a truism that there is no such thing. Read Robert Coles' Doing Documentary Work for the mainstream position on this. I was really talking about the tradition which holds that there is no such thing as objectivity, only honesty. That leads to a certain style of presentation, which is a big part of this tradition. Maybe it should be called Documentary Photography because it really refers to a particular tradition as opposed to the function of the photography.

i see. thanks for explaining.

rutt wrote:

. . . when people got up to speak, they became very intense and angry. They stepped down from the soapbox and smiled, shook hands, slapped backs. I wish I had a pair of shots to show this, the same person on and off the soapbox.

that would have made for some cool photo comparisons.

JulieLawsonPhotography · April 18, 2009

You did an absolutely amazing job documenting and capturing the real emotions of the day. These should be in print somewhere. I could go on and on.

PremiumMalt · April 19, 2009

Very cool. You definitely captured the message. I wish I could have been there to support the cause. I live like a mile from there.

pathfinder · April 19, 2009

I think you did a great job of presenting so many different people and their messages.

If I were a California state representative, I think I might be a little concerned. Apparently not everyone in California is wanting larger, more expensive government after all.

I think I liked OPM the best. Not the best picture exactly, but the best political message.

It will be interesting to see if these protestors can keep the juices flowing for the next few years until the next congressional elections.

Santa Clarita Valley Tea Party

Comments