Occupy Wall Street 2011 -2012 New York City
“And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're goin' through”
~ David Bowie
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I WAS THERE: PHOTOGRAPHING OCCUPY WALL STREET
I watched Occupy Wall Street grow from seven people sitting on cardboard on Wall Street into thousands upon thousands filling Zuccotti Park and eventually into a global movement. That's why, for me, Occupy wasn't just another protest. I watched it happen from the beginning.
When I first came across those few people on Wall Street, there was no massive crowd, no international media circus and no guarantee that anything would come of it. There were seven people. But something about it made me stop. So I started photographing. Then I kept going back.
Seven became dozens. Dozens became hundreds. Then Zuccotti Park was packed with thousands. I watched the people arrive, organize, argue, sleep on cardboard, feed each other and try to figure out what they were creating. Across the street, the new World Trade Center was rising. That image stays with me: the rebuilding of one of the world's most recognizable skylines happening above a growing movement challenging the economic and political status quo below it. I knew I was watching history while it was happening.
There were times when things became violent and I was packed into the middle of it, camera in hand, with nowhere to go. As a photographer, you learn to watch the crowd, the police, the hands and the exits. You learn when to move and when to hold your ground.
And the equipment actually took a beating. One camera got banged around badly enough that I eventually had to replace it. I had a lens that needed repair. During the chaos in Times Square, when police on horseback charged into the crowd, my laptop got crushed (and so did I) in my backpack and the hard drive died.
Those weren't abstract risks. I was physically putting myself and my equipment into the middle of what was happening. And I was a Canadian citizen living in the United States without American medical insurance.
So I wasn't just risking a camera. A camera could be replaced. A lens could be repaired. A hard drive could be replaced. My body was another matter. If I had been seriously injured and ended up in an American hospital, the consequences could have been enormous. I knew that. And I kept going in. Because I wanted to photograph what was actually happening, not just the images that were safe enough to make from across the street.
Occupy eventually spread far beyond Zuccotti Park and New York. It became a global movement. But November 15, 2011, when police cleared the park, wasn't the end. Occupy continued in different forms, and I continued photographing it into 2012.
Looking back, what I remember most isn't a political slogan or a particular argument. It's the transformation. Seven people on cardboard. Thousands in Zuccotti Park. The World Trade Center rising behind them. The crowds getting bigger. The world starting to pay attention. And me standing in the middle of it with a camera, trying to document something that I already knew was bigger than the frame.
That's what those photographs mean to me. I didn't just photograph Occupy Wall Street. I watched it become Occupy Wall Street.
And I risked much more than my equipment to be there.
