About My Best Photograph Of 2009
Taken at the May 26 protest against the California Supreme Court’s ruling upholding Proposition 8′s prohibition of marriage equality, held at Salmon Street Springs. The full photo set contains a total of twenty-four photos, including several others featuring this particular subject, but it was this one which The Progressive paid to use in their July 2009 issue.
Oddly, or perhaps not, marriage equality also was the subject of the coverage of which I am most proud from back in my Portland Communique days. Uninterested in marriage myself, but able to legally obtain one if I wanted to, the subject for some reason sparks some of my best work in any medium.
More generally, my best photographs — although I’m still judgmental enough to cringe any time I succumb to using “best” and “photograph” when discussing myself — tend to be those that capture moments, not objects, and certainly not (although there are apparent exceptions) subjects aware that they are being photographed.
Out of all my photography over the course of last year — of television panel events, high school plays, teabagging, comic book conventions, zoo animals, and even bicycle races — ultimately the visual happenstance of this shot comes first in capturing a moment not just from the event, nor just from that singular day, but from the necessary motion of history.
