Post Your Local Occupy Wall Street Protest Photos Here

[robklurfield]

 

[robklurfield]

A young lady seated next to me was sewing a protest message onto her jacket (and, I'll add, doing a meticulous job, too).

 

[Field]

There is actually a nation wide movement to make an amendment to the constitution to make it impossible for corporations to be people. Talk to your city council, many, many, city councils are trying to push this forward.

These people in these photos, some are new, many have been fighting these ideas for years.

 

[robklurfield]

every protest must have counter-protesters; here it was two young Ron Paul supporters.

 

[robklurfield]

 

[robklurfield]

 

[robklurfield]

an avian protester?

 

[robklurfield]

speaking of occupiers, NYU has taken over much of the Village. $50K+ for tuition, room and board. I didn't stop to ask the supine photographer if he was the ground to get a better angle....

 

[robklurfield]

Lloyd Blankfein in effigy. Estimated personal economic net worth $450 million.

 

[robklurfield]

 

[robklurfield]

 

[robklurfield]

 

[robklurfield]

 

[robklurfield]

police brass gathered at the Washington Square Arch

 

[robklurfield]

 

[Keith]

Thanks for starting this thread and posting your shots Nick ... it reminds me that even though I live in a land down under where the effect of what these protest are dealing with is felt less by Australians than many others around the globe, not all is roses on planet earth and this movement may just be the start of something really significant!

 

[Roger Hicks]

OK: a little bit more about why I think Nick's images are so good:

Compositionally, they tell you exactly what is going on, via a combination of the placards and the faces, and by being close enough that you can see what's going on, even in a small picture. Some of the other pictures lack engagement, or are simply too 'busy'. Simplicity, without too much to distract the viewer, is generally important in this sort of picture. Think of Brandt's "Coal Gatherer": attention is focused on that one person. As it is in Ronis's picture of the strike leader at the Renault factory, or all the portraits in Dorothea Lange's 'First Rural Rehabilitation Colonists'

'Busy' pictures can work, when everyone's attention is directed in the same direction: Ronis's 'Delegate' (1950) or Klutsis's admittedly constructed picture for the 1937 Paris World's Fair pavilion of Soviet citizens voting for Stalin.

Technically, they are sharp and clear, with good tonality and open shadows. Open shadows are by no means essential, except when murky shadows take over most of the picture. Again, some of the other pictures here show this all too clearly.

Reading Derrière l'objectif de Willy Ronis is fascinating, because he explains quite candidly how he got each picture, under such headings as patience, réflexion (the well-considered, carefully chosen viewpoint), hasard (chance), forme (shape) and temps (time).

Nick's are not the only good images, though they are of the highest consistent standard (both technically and aesthetically) of all the pictures on the thread. This is not to denigrate for one moment the best of several others, including Rick Waldroup, andersju and robklurfield.

As for those those who complain at my comparing them with Brandt, Lange, Ronis or Klutsis, I ask them a simple question. With whom should I compare them? With Fred Smith and Harry Bloggs, of who no-one has ever heard? Or with photographers whose work is well known, or at least easily researched?

The reason for concentrating on praise rather than attack is simple. Suggest to someone that they are doing something right, and it breeds confidence and a determination to do even better. Try to point out what is wrong, using their pictures as a specific example, and it often breeds resentment, defeatism, excuses and defensiveness. Not always, for sure, but often enough that it is not worth doing.

Finally, there is an interesting piece on http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/listeningpost/2011/10/201110875949746728.html, about how mainstream media seem to be assiduously ignoring the protests as far as possible. Of course Al-Jazeera has its own agenda, but then, so do other media.

Cheers,

R.

 

[gdi]

Wrong once again, sport. You're " 0-fer'n today, no? You were critical of the pictures I posted, and reread my post in reaction to it. I replied words to the effect of, "I shot what was there, in the style that I shoot in. Like them, dislike them - whatever." And I do mean that in complete sincerity. Though I am grateful for those who took the time to give them a nod.

Actually I am not, you are the one who "invited" me to find another thread to participate in...

"How 'bout just skipping this one (one, as in 1 out of the thousands of threads here...) thread that has actual street photography of protestt and some reasonable, thus far respectful and expected "sway" into politics, and reading the thousands (as in 1000's) of others on arcane topics ranging from Yashica Electro "POD" repairs, to fixing light leaks in 1960' FSU medium format folders, to comparison of results of coated vs. uncoated Leitz Summar lenses from the 1930's - eh?"


And, since the only critical comments I made directly regarding the photos were in line with your own ( basically that you shot what was there ), I reasonably concluded that the reason you suggested I leave is because I wasn't praising with such adjectives as those listed. I know it would feel better if there were only positive comments, and agreement on the sociological, political, and historical significance of this set of photographs. But fortunately for the quality of the discourse, that isn't the situation here.

 

[zauhar]

Here's a few of mine from last Saturday.

 

[claacct]

Lloyd Blankfein in effigy. Estimated personal economic net worth $450 million.

This guy with his 'sign' seems totally oblivious of the 'history' behind blaming a small minority for controlling the money and using caricatures of them for propaganda.