A rally begins on 24th & Mission. You really need to get up high to catch some good photos. For this I went upstairs into a dance studio that has huge windows.
Thursday was a big day for students of all ages in California. Schools from Kindergarten to Universities are losing classes, teachers, staff and other resources. I don’t know what we would do at the PhotoJ department over at SF State if Canon and Nikon hadn’t donated all that equipment for us to play with, because those weren’t your dollars at work.
One rally started at 24th & Mission streets, another at SF State, and I’m sure there were more that started small, and as the day went by, merged together for the mass rally at City Hall.
It was beautiful, students in San Francisco really know how to party it up at a protest. There wasn’t a moment without music.
Also, always awesome to bump into lots of my photo buddies. Every time there is a big event like this, you’ll bump into another photog., you’re glad to see them, exchange a few words, and then quickly your attention will be drawn to something else, like the event at hand. Then you kind of absentmindedly drift off, sometimes barely uttering an intelligible sentence to excuse yourself. The desire to shoot pulls you. You are in the zone. Seeing your buddy is like coming up from the water to take a breath, but it doesn’t last very long and you have to go back in. And off you go. And they don’t get offended. They know, and they understand why you need to leave. That’s if they’re not gone before you are.
Click on any photo to see it full size. I know, you knew that already. I’ll shut up now.
Same picture as above. The colors look different on this one as compared to the others in these series. That's because I decided to have a little fun in photoshop. Almost killed the saturation and really pushed the contrast. This photo has a big stupid tree I want to kill in the middle of it, so I thought making it BW or playing with the colors might make up for it a little.
Motivating the marchers
These are actually the feet of another photographer, Jessica Pons who currently interns at the SF Chronicle. She was on top of a newspaper dispenser. See? Told you smart photographers always get high up.
Walking north on Mission Street towards City Hall.
I don't think I've been to a protest in San Francisco yet where there wasn't any music.
Bring a strobe on a sunny day too.
A crowd of students on the steps of City Hall
Think anyone cares about cuts to education? Think they'll listen?
great photos Mabel !!!!
[...] gods conspired for me again and my photo class on Thursday was cancelled because of the daylong rallies against budget cuts to education. I had another week to wait out the weather and coordinate with Nathan, who was lovely, flexible [...]