September 1st, 2008 RNC Protest

Since my RNC Press Pass did not come in the mail….I decided the best place to get RNC shots was from on the ground within the protest.  You typically won’t find any politics here but, the RNC in town is big news, I have never covered or seen a large protest of this scale before, and I did’nt have anything else better to do today (except for the 5% tornado risk in NE ND).  Because it’s related to the RNC & a protest it’s political in nature, I can’t do much about that, otherwise once the RNC is over no more politics.

A few highlights were;

- Entering the ‘caged’ area their were a bunch of anti-protester ’support our troops’ protesters & delegates. I happened to be with the ’support our troops – stop the war’ group at the time so one side would chant ’support our troops, the other would chant ’support our troops’, in a bit of an odd standoff.
- A delegate (nice suit but, very hot) exited through the gates, his credentials allow him to pass through the barricade along the march near the energy center but, not a couple blocks away and got caught up with the March or became disoriented and failed to find his way back to the RNC entrance, a few blocks up he identified and showed credentials to the riot police instructed to let no one pass the reaction of the riot officer he was identifying himself to was to pull down his face shield and hold his 4 foot wood pole with both hands in front giving it a bit of a smack in the other hand, the delegate proceeded to complete the protest march.
- I was a bit concerned around the caged area near the RNC where you could not exit or escape and narrow at various points, at the entrance were the anti-protesters along with riot police with tear gas launchers and fire extinguisher sized military grade pepper spray. Once you entered the caged area if something had gone down we would have been sprayed and mass confusion, panic, and trampling would have occurred.
- I was all setup to shoot(photographically speaking) a riot police officer shaking the hands of little kids as they passed, one out of a long line with protesters walking by, would have been a great shot but, just too many people in the way and was unable to get close enough without violating the personal space of the riot police, I only got some partial shots.
- Quite a few of the protesters were thanking the LEO’s along the way for protection.
- Lot’s of parents with kids (dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb), Children’s Museum was closed(see below), including infants in strollers.  It was a peaceful march but, things could have turned nasty fast.
- I saw tens of millions of dollars worth of photo gear on ever spot of the walk, I have not had a chance to look through some of the photos published yet but, I bet their are some impressive shots. I still have allot of stills/video to compile.
- I saw two 18 year-old jump the line (into the protesters) they were shirtless, they probably had to de-mace at some point, I notified a protester Marshall and he just gave them a dirty look and radioed it in and verbally communicated something to a couple other people.
- I signed up for the twitter updates of what was going down where, I received 150+ or so over the course of 8 hours.

After what seemed like 12 miles of walking about 8 hours from when I arrived, I sat down for a while in the lot across the St. Paul Cathedral that overlooks downtown St. Paul and Excel Energy Center with Riot Police below blocking a couple of streets.  Busloads of delegates were arriving along with media.  Mitch Epstein and his assistant were taking large format (8×10) photos of the riot police below for an upcoming project ‘American Power’.  I ran into Ben Huset or rather he ran into me, we sat and talked for a half hour before the final 1.2 mile walk back to my car.

**Still work in progress** Also, see the other September 1st posts.

Video Vimeo -

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September 1st, 2008 RNC Protest Staging – State Capital

I walked around and shot photos of alot of the props, people, signs, banners.  I was not really sure which group I was going to ‘march’ or photograph with.  I figured if I started at the front I could drop back and photograph the whole protest (which I did), plus the immigration folks had a live band.  This was during the staging & ralley going on at the time.

Video Vimeo Video YouTube

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September 1st, 2008 RNC Rude Mechanical Orchestra

I wish I ran into this group earlier and spent more time on them.  Rude Mechanical Orchestra is a ‘unconventional’ 30 piece radical marching band.  The video is off site for explicit language, gestures, and possible content.  Follow here at your own risk Vimeo Video – YouTube Video.

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September 1st, 2008 RNC 2008

You won’t find any political content on this site (though the media I intend to collect is by it’s nature is political, it’s un-avoidable).  I have been preparing/training (i.e. how not to get arrested, treat pepper spray/mace, legal contacts, etc) over the last few days to document the RNC 2008 convention in the Twin Cities which is a pretty big deal, traveling to another state to attend a DNC/RNC convention is just not ever going to happen for me.  While kicking back at home and watching Hurricane Gustav sounds pretty attractive, this is not a type of event I have covered before (street level large scale protest/demonstration/march).  This morning I intend to hit the RNC protests starting at the State Capital.  Bringing a bunch of photographic/video gear I am going to immediately stick out as a target, it’s going to be cheap/old/low end photographic/video gear and use it to the best of it’s abilities and hopefully document both sides of the protests since my RNC Press Pass never showed up, I figure I will cover the action on the ground outside.  I am charging the rest of my batteries, I will have quite a bit of gear on hand, and will likely switch off both media, and hardware through the day depending on how far away my car is.  Final preparations include filling out medical forms, writing legal defense numbers on my arm with a sharpie, as well as packing first aid and precautions for chemical weapons attacks (mace, pepper spray, tear gas), etc (hopefully non leathal weapons of mass deterence).  If all goes well and I get some dramatic photos of some police lines in full riot gear, arrests, and some interesting looking protesters/demonstrators and other interesting looking props.  If all does not go as well as planned I get free meals, medical care, and lodging courtesy of Ramsey County.

In any event I intend to head to the capital grounds in the morning, take a bunch of stills and video, if I can park close enough, swap out my gear and follow/lead/or embed myself with the best organized march leading up to the RNC, perhaps grab a bite to eat, get some shots/footage, then maybe even head over to Republipaluza for a third round.

A bit disturbing since 9/11 is the number of photographers harassed, arrested, equipment seized in the name of homeland security, yet, I can fire up google earth and peer down in a satellite view or get street level views of the metro area from anywhere in the world.  This is going to be a pretty good judge of tolerance since I have never yet encountered this issue personally but, one thing is for certain is that I will most likely be 3 feet behind a guy with a much larger & heavier camera.

Post Event Update

Made it out alive with actually little problems.  I decided to take an older Panasonic PV-GS300 with optional directional mic, along with an old Rebel (the original 300D) and a couple of Sigma lenses.  I felt like I walked 12 miles with a 30 point back on (gallon of water, change of clothes, other equipment, etc).  I spoke with the Ramsey County Sheriffs department officer and he assured me that their would be no very few issues (besides a few arrests and that we would be quite safe).  After the event I would agree that most law enforcement did an outstanding job protecting the mainstream protester/demonstrator.  However, their were several direct action type events, other incidents, as well as people being in the wrong place at the wrong time resulting in arrests, the number I head was 73 were charged with felonies, 42 with gross misdemeanors, and 48 with misdemeanors and the day is early yet.  I saw law enforcement from quite a few agencies including Federal DHS, Secret Service, and the National Guard.  Here was the route I took the first 100 photos I shot were have not been geo-coded yet, I took about 310 stills and 30 minutes of video.

08 RNC Protest/Demonstration Route

I will be posting segments as I get time, my time is very stretched right now with both additional activities as well as just catching up.

Once again I distributed cards, if I gave you a card e-mail me for the original digital media but, please include details such as time of day, what you might have been doing/holding at the time and I will direct you to the downloadable media.  It’s likely your photo will not be posted simply due amount of media I captured.

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