"Photoganda" - the attempt to censor Evan Vucci's iconic photograph

July 19, 2024

I saw the term “Photoganda” for the first time yesterday and when I heard what it was referring to, I felt compelled to write about it here on my blog. “Photoganda” is related to an apparent upswing of support Donald Trump has gained after Saturday’s failed assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. It specifically identifies the powerful images from the event by photographers Evan Vucci and Doug Mills as the reason for the upswing. From what I can find Axios used the term “Photoganda” three days ago when they wrote an article about the photographers who documented the incident (It is a short but good read). Axios reported that unidentified photo editor(s) were calling for media outlets to stop sharing the images of a defiant and wounded Trump because they felt the images are giving Trump an unfair advantage in the Presidential campaign right now. From there other new outlets starting using the term. The term is very attention getting but problematic in concept. If there are certain individuals trying to devalue the importance of the photographs from the assassination attempt for the benefit of their own political interests, and they actually coined the term “Photoganda” then I have a serious problem with them. It is a dangerous term especially as we are entering an era of more AI imagery where people may already be starting to question the authenticity of documentary images.

When I heard of the assassination attempt, I immediately turned on the TV and most channels were showing the same 3 minutes of tape just before the shooting until Trump was driven off. Being a photographer with several decades of law enforcement experience I focused on lots of different details in the video. First the security tactics and response but then I noticed the two photographers who moved forward immediately after the volley of shots to document the incident. Early on I thought about authoring a post about the photographers based on their movement during the event and when I saw the images they captured I wanted to showcase them as photographers because it was obvious that these images would become iconic and most likely Pulitzer worthy. Those photographers received immediate media recognition so the need for post became less of an issue. Then the “Photoganda” dialogue yesterday motivated me to pick up the pace to author this post.

I’ll address the newly created term “Photoganda” first. It obviously refers to Propaganda which is defined as: Information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view. Everyone agrees that Evan Vucci’s photograph of Trump with blood running down his cheek, raising his fist, with the flag in the background is factually correct; There are no claims of AI elements or manipulation. Most people also realize the image is a huge gift to the Trump campaign. The image instantly became iconic and no matter what your political beliefs are I think everyone can agree that Vucci and the other photographer were in the right place, at the right time to document something historical, but none of the photographers in Pennsylvania crafted images with the intent of creating propaganda. Even if they wanted to, they didn’t have time; they couldn’t prepare their shot (excuse the term) because none of them knew what they were about to witness, and they had limitations on their positions where they could photograph from, plus they all captured the same events just from different vantage points. If you look back to World War II there are plenty of great examples of Propaganda, the evil Nazi Joseph Goebbels was a master propagandist who comprehended the power of images, especially newsreels, to manipulate public opinion. US General Douglas MacArthur was aware of the power images had too, producing news reels of him returning to the Philippines and preferring photographers to photograph him from a low vantage point to visually increase his stature. We can also examine Joe Rosenthal’s photograph of the flag raising on Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima, which at different points in history has been accused of being carefully crafted, or possibly staged. Rosenthal earned a Pulitzer for the image which has become an unofficial second logo of the United States Marine Corps and is recognized worldwide still to this day. I heard TV commentator Jesse Watters have a humorous take on the “Photoganda” issue when he said “They take the photographs, we disseminate them, the public consumes it. If you don’t want to be part of the process, make pottery and sell it by the side of the road”. The images we are seeing in the media of the attempted assassination of Trump are just outstanding press or photojournalistic photographs. Sure, they could eventually be used in a propaganda form, most likely an unlicensed item, but as they are being shared now, they are not propaganda.

Donal Trump after failed assassination attempt. Photograph by Evan Vucci - AP Chief Photographer in Washington DC

Evan Vucci is AP’s Chief Photographer in Washington DC, and he captured the above image of a bloodied Trump the flag in the background (In the video of the incident I believe Evan is wearing a plaid shirt and a baseball hat). I assume he will win another Pulitzer for this image. New York Times Photographer Doug Mills, who was wearing a grey sun hat in the videos is another Pulitzer Prize winning photographer that captured some incredible images including the one below. Both these two photographers were moving about immediately after the shooting positioning themselves to get their images. Doug was directly below Trump photographing when the Bullet struck Trump’s ear. Doug told CBS News he made a burst exposure with his Sony camera and that one of the frames captured the bullet. He mentioned his camera was capable of 30 frames per second, so I assume the camera body was an Alpha 1, unfortunately he didn’t state what his shutter speed was for the exposure. I would expect his shutter speed was over 1/800th of a second so if the bullet was travelling around 2000 feet per second at that point the length of the line in his image would be consistent with how far the bullet traveled while the exposure was being made. It is an incredible capture one that Harold Edgerton would be jealous of. Doug said an FBI Forensic Specialist inspected the RAW image file and confirmed it documented the bullet in flight immediately after it had struck Trump. In watching the CBS interview of Doug Mills he spoke about former New York Times Photographer Ron Edmonds who photographed the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan in 1981. Doug said they worked together for 15 years and that he had talked with Ron several times about photographing the Reagan event. Ron told Doug in situations like that “to go forward don’t go backwards” to get the best images. Ron was also a Pulitzer Prize winning photographer and he unfortunately passed away last month.

Donald Trump as gunshots are fired at his campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024. This photo appears to show a bullet in the air near Trump. DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES

As I talked about above the motivation for this post was the creation of the term “Photoganda” and the suggestion that some people with political agendas were trying to censor outstanding press images solely because those photographs were not beneficial to their political goals. Censorship is a violation of the 1st Amendment of the Constitution, and it angers me when anyone tries preventing someone else from expressing themselves, in this case especially since these photographers were just sharing factually correct images of an historic event. Another thing I want to mention is I hope Evan and Doug are somehow able to receive some compensation from all the people who I know are all marketing their images in a variety of products. Copyright is also an important thing, unfortunately with so many people using Evan’s image already it will be a big task to track down every one of them. I know both photographers were on a paid assignment but hopefully they can monetize their images beyond their salary that day because I am sure their images are generating thousands of dollars for others. I also want to share Evan’s quote after capturing such an iconic image: “I haven't had a chance to really think about any of that stuff. But apparently, the photo is pretty viral.”

Anna Moneymaker’s photograph Donald Trump after he was shot.

There were other photographers at the rally as well. Anna Moneymaker from Getty captured the incredible photograph of Trump on the ground after being shot through the legs of a Secret Service Agent who is shielding him. In an incident with an adrenaline spike like this, I suspect many photographers would have missed that image; their cameras probably would have focused on the agent’s rear end not Trump. She captured a hard image, in a dangerous environment. Gene J. Puskar who is a Pittsburgh based AP photographer also captured some solid images. Unfortunately for all the photographers who captured great images out that day, the world is most likely only remember the big three images by Vucci, Mills, and Moneymaker images.

We live in a world of reels and video content now, and a biproduct of that I think is often a short attention span for content. We have so much video and still image content from this event, but I love the fact people are focused on the still image. The still image allows the viewer to exam and reflect at our own pace and we need to be reminded of that fact. The capability of today’s cameras to capture detail is incredible. We have never been able to dissect an historic event like this with so many highly detailed images of the event. When I saw the photographs of Trump after he was shot there was no question to the location and extent of his injury, I am still in awe of the detail in the images.

I mentioned above how Ron Edmonds had told Doug Mills to go forward in critical incidents and it reminded me of some of the best advice I ever received studying at Arizona State University. When one of my professors, Bill Jenkins, saw the first few rolls of my Pasadena PD series he gave me similar advice when he suggested I change from a 50mm lens to a wide-angle lens to force myself to get closer to my subject matter. The suggestion was outstanding, and I have used it with most of photographs since. There is an edge you get being in close that takes most photographs to another level. Tactically, from a law enforcement perspective, I was taught early on that often the best way to handle a threat if you are out in the open is to go right at it instead of retreating. I worked with a number of Vietnam veterans in my career including a Green Beret and a Seal, both had incredible insight on how to survive. Obviously a completely different objective but an interesting parallel.

Finally, from a law enforcement perspective I saw some good things that officers and agents did and some bad things. From the protection perspective it was inexcusable to allow the suspect to have gained access to the roof location, and then for the counter sniper team to allow the suspect to fire, especially multiple rounds. After being shot Donald Trump should not have stopped to raise his fist in defiance because it exposed himself it there were multiple threats beside the first sniper. Maybe Trump had gone in to shock by that point, if so it was a strong reaction on his part, but the security detail should have covered him and whisked him to the car. Luckily for Evan that didn’t happen, and he captured the image he did. I will leave it there because there are so many other people scrutinizing what happened there and my primary focus here is on photographs. I am concerned that more press photographers will be able to document similarly chaotic events in the coming months, I hope they won’t have those opportunities, because I know we all need a break from the tension of the last eight years.

AP - Images altered to make them look like Secret Service Agents were smiling after the assassination attempt.

Evan Vucci's Trump Image Is a Legendary American Photograph - The Atlantic

In pictures: Trump injured in shooting at Pennsylvania rally | CNN Politics

Time Magazine interview of Evan Vucci

A Long Arc - Photography and the American South

May 26, 2024

When I was studying photography at Arizona State, I became aware of the FSA photographers, the photographers who documented the Civil Rights Movement, Matthew Brady, and William Christenberry. The images these photographers captured impacted how I see today. I remember installing Christenberry’s photographs for an exhibition at the Northlight Gallery in Matthews Hall on campus, and being in awe of how beautiful the prints were. Christenberry’s work probably was the most obvious in documenting the American South, he captured scenes that only exist there. At that time in my life when I was looking at the work of other photographers working in the South I was focused more on the specific subject matter and the craftsmanship of the images. Over time, from revisiting my own images, I have gained a better understanding of how many layers of meaning an image can actually have. Some images may have an obvious singular message, but many images have multiple layers of meaning and information once you learn how to look at photographs. I also remember Bill Jay stressing to us in class that every viewer brings their own experiences to each image and what is important to one viewer may not be important to another.

One of the people I follow on social media is Gregory Harris who is the is the High Museum of Art’s Donald and Marilyn Keough Family Curator of Photography. I have had the opportunity to meet Greg and I greatly respect his knowledge of Contemporary and Documentary Photography. At the end of last year, I saw him announce the release of the catalogue / book titled A long Arc Southern Photography which accompanied the exhibition at the High Museum. I was immediately interested in the book, so I contacted the High Museum gift shop to arrange a purchase. The book is the subject of this blog post, a post that is woefully overdue.

Weighing in at over 4 lbs. this 304 page Aperture book with over 275 photographs was published last November to accompany the exhibition which opened at the High Museum and is now currently on display at The Addison Gallery of Art at the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts until July 31st. From there it moves to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts for an exhibition opening October 5th, 2024. The book is a beast, but it must be to properly cover the subject matter otherwise they would have omitted important photographers. I love the layout of the book and the content; it is an amazing documentation of the history of photography in the American South. The printing is good, and I like the fact the image descriptions and titles accompany the images. The dimensions of the book are unique, but it works well, allowing creativity with the image placement on the pages. The amount of information in this book, written and actual images, is incredible. The only complaint I have about the book is the font size and text padding are smaller than I prefer, it isn’t an easy read, but I understand why that is because it would probably add another twenty-five plus pages to an already big book.

This book really brought in to focus how important the American South has been to the history of photography. As I stated above, early on in my career I was aware of many of the notable photographers who had photographed in the South, but I hadn’t given any thought to how much the region was actually documented. When I started going through this book I was immediately impressed by how many great photographers had photographed in the South. I also was surprised to learn that some images I knew well, but had not considered the location, had actually been photographed in the South; the cover image of Robert Frank’s The Americans book is an example of one of those images.

A Long Arc - Photography and the American South - Page Examples:

Much of America is changing today because of ideological influences, migration, and a host of other factors that are too complex to get in to here. Many of our major cities have quality of life issues with things like the high cost of living, overcrowding, and criminal justice failures. Having visited Atlanta a couple years ago I felt the region seemed less affected by the problems in other parts of the country. I am not naïve to problems of the South’s past, but I didn’t feel the same racial tension in Atlanta that I have felt recently in Los Angeles (which has increased dramatically from when I was younger). The small portion of the South I have seen seems to be more like the America of the 20th Century than a lot of other parts of the country are today and I appreciate that. It is important to retain our American identity as a society while still appreciating and respecting the diversity within the whole. I think the residents in the South may be doing a better job of this than other regions of our country. So, with all this said, I think this book also has value documenting the community of the South which is separate from the history of photography element of the book. Another thing to appreciate is how many images in the book also document important historic and transformative moments in American history.

I have reviewed several books here on my blog and with each the goal is to give a fair evaluation of the book along with my personal taste opinions. One thing I always try to identify is who the book is best suited for, since photography interests and tastes are so varied and photography books can be expensive. This is one of the few recent books that I believe would be a good addition to anyone’s photography library. This book is as complete a document as you can author for the subject. The reader will definitely learn something new about the medium and probably rediscover some images they had not thought about in a while. The book is well worth the price, Amazon now has it for $47. It is important for photographers to understand the history of the medium to be good at their craft. I know most of us think New York is the center of the photographic universe but the photographs from the American South are some of the most important images ever made.

The book’s official description is as follows:

Collects over 175 years of key moments in the visual history of the Southern United States, with over two hundred and fifty photographs taken from 1845 to present. The South is perhaps the most mythologized region in the United States and also one of the most depicted. Since the dawn of photography in the nineteenth century, photographers have articulated the distinct and evolving character of the South’s people, landscape, and culture and reckoned with its fraught history. Indeed, many of the urgent questions we face today about what defines the American experience—from racism, poverty, and the legacy of slavery to environmental disaster, immigration, and the changes wrought by a modern, global economy—appear as key themes in the photography of the South. The visual history of the South is inextricably intertwined with the history of photography and also the history of America, and is therefore an apt lens through which to examine American identity. A Long Arc: Photography and the American South accompanies a major exhibition at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, with more than one hundred photographers represented, including Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Gordon Parks, William Eggleston, Sally Mann, Carrie Mae Weems, Dawoud Bey, Alec Soth, and An-My Lê. Insightful texts by Imani Perry, Sarah Kennel, Makeda Best, and Rahim Fortune, among others, illuminate this broad survey of photographs of the Southern United States as an essential American story. Copublished by Aperture and High Museum of Art, Atlanta

Details

Format: Hardback

Number of pages: 304

Number of images: 275

Publication date: 2023-11-21

Measurements: 8.07 x 11.42 inches

ISBN: 9781597115513

Contributors

Imani Perry is the Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University and a faculty associate with the programs in law and public affairs, gender and sexuality studies, and jazz studies.

Sarah Kennel is the Aaron Siskind Curator of Photography and Director of the Raysor Center for Works on Paper at Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond.

Gregory J. Harris is the Donald and Marilyn Keough Family Curator of Photography at the High Museum of Art.

Makeda Best is the Richard L. Menschel Curator of Photography at the Harvard Art Museums.

LeRonn P. Brooks is associate curator for modern and contemporary collections at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles.

Rahim Fortune is a photographer living and working between Austin and Brooklyn.

Grace Elizabeth Hale is commonwealth professor of American studies and history at the University of Virginia.

Maria L. Kelly is assistant curator of photography at the High Museum of Art.

Scott L. Matthews is assistant professor of history at Florida State College at Jacksonville.

Brian Piper is Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Assistant Curator of Photographs at the New Orleans Museum of Art.

Press Quotes:

“The magnificence of a retrospective like this is not just the accounting offered by its historical sweep, but the way it conveys the immense complexity of this region, to inspire a renewed attention to the cruel radiance of what is. Suffering does not always lead to compassion and change, but photographs like these remind us that standing in witness to suffering surely should.”—Margaret Renkl, The New York Times

“…these photographs demonstrate how essential the South has been not only to American history and identity, but to American photography—from Mathew Brady’s battlefield images of the Civil War (1861–65) to the intimate interiors of Carrie Mae Weems.”—Andrew Durbin, Frieze magazine

Additional Information about the Exhibition:

You Tube Video of the Installation at the High Museum (11 mins)

PD-029 #33 5-02-92 Bill in front of his laundromat - Los Angeles, California

30 years ago today, I was at the LA Riots

May 2, 2022

As a documentary photographer, the fact that I was unable to photograph some of the most surreal things I ever witnessed will always bother me.

I was a Police Officer for the City of Chino in 1992 and at work when the LA Riots erupted. Chino is forty miles East of downtown Los Angeles, just outside of Los Angeles County in San Bernardino County. I remember watching Reginald Denny getting dragged from his truck and beaten on the TV in the watch commander’s office as our dispatchers took 911 calls from our citizens pleading for our officers to nbe sent to help stop the things they were witnessing on. I was expecting that there would soon be a mutual aid request soon from LAPD and I started lobbying to go when that call came. I knew Los Angeles better than most my peers and I wanted to get into this fray. The rioting grew that night, but the mutual aid request never came.

I lived in Pasadena then and when I got home, I could smell the smoke from the fires in Los Angeles. One buddy I grew up with was a Pasadena cop and he let me know Northwest Pasadena was rioting too and their department was on tactical alert. It immediately reminded me of my father’s stories from the Pasadena Gambling House riot which occurred during the Watt’s Riots in 1965, just after he had joined Pasadena PD.

I watched a lot of news before my next shift as rioting spread on April 30th. I knew I wanted to get to Los Angeles but was torn because part of me wanted to go photograph it and the other part wanted to go as a police officer to deal with the looting and rioting. I knew to go photograph on my own would be dangerous and logistically nearly impossible.

Finally on May 1st Los Angeles sent out a mutual aid request to San Bernardino and Riverside Counties. I was one of nine officers sent from Chino PD, we took three older police cars. We were to the Los Alamitos National Guard base where we staged and waited for our assignment. I remember we left in the afternoon and traffic on the 57 freeway was so heavy we had to drive down the center shoulder to get there. Looking at the people we were passing most of them looked serious or nervous. I remember people were worried the rioting would spread throughout Southern California. I was focused on what awaited us in Los Angeles, we were not saying much, mostly listening to the Am news radio. I was expecting to get into a lot of conflict, so I had the pregame type of focus. I was thinking of what I had seen on the news, and I was trying to run as many of those scenarios through my mind as possible to prepare.

We sat at Los Alamitos for over an hour then they told us they were cooking steak dinners for us before we went it. The last thing I wanted was a military grade steak dinner, I just wanted to get to Los Angeles while things were still going on. After dinner we were sent to the City of Inglewood in a task force of mostly officers and deputies from San Bernardino County agencies. The only agency from our county that didn’t go with us was Ontario PD because they had been assigned to escort a shipment of ammunition to Compton PD shortly after they arrived at Los Alamitos.

It was evening when we finally started our drive up the 405 Freeway. Our convoy of over 30 police cars, every unit with 3 to 4 cops wearing helmets, and support vehicles was pretty impressive looking, a strong show of force. The San Bernadino Sheriff even sent his mobile communications center semi truck so our radios would still work outside of our normal range. As we got near the 110 Freeway, I could see plumes of smoke all around South-Central Los Angeles. The columns had orange tints from the late afternoon sun, and the scene was almost apocalyptic. I knew a full curfew was set to go into effect at sunset, or 8pm, and I was hoping to get deployed before that. We got to Inglewood and staged in the parking lot of an eight-story hotel on Century Boulevard just off the freeway, today it is a Motel 6. Once again, we all stood around and waited, now as the sun was setting and the curfew was going in to affect. The Inglewood officials didn’t seem to know what to do with us. By that point rioting in their city had calmed down. Los Angeles and Compton were still rioting but Inglewood officials didn’t want to send us over to those areas in case Inglewood had more problems. I also think a lot of people saw us come into the city and officials just liked our presence as a deterrent.

We were eventually sent to guard a gas station on the north side of Inglewood, I think it was on La Brea near Centinela. The small mini mart portion of the Chevron had already been partially looted but I was able to find a map inside so we could figure out where we were (pre-cellphone era when gas stations sold maps). With the curfew in place we hardly saw anyone out and about. I could still hear gunshots occasionally, but everything sounded a couple blocks away, and no one was shooting at us. A couple of us eventually talked our Sergeant into letting us scout the surrounding area. Inglewood residents still had electricity so except for the looted businesses it looked normal. But once we went a few blocks East into Los Angeles where there was no power, so everything was pitch black. In Los Angeles we came across a market that was still burning, LA City Fire engines were on scene working it with CHP officers providing them security. On one block we found a corner market that had burned to the ground, a pilot light for some appliance was still burning and that little two-inch flame was the only light we could see on the entire block. We saw a few people moving around in the darkness but for the most part the streets were deserted in that area.

It was well after midnight when we returned to the hotel at the end of our shift. Things were still disorganized. The San Bernadino County Sheriff’s Department had allocated all the rooms at the hotel for their people, and no one had any idea where to put us. We waited for a long while and I finally got fed up. I told my sergeant if he’d let me drive to a pay phone I would find us a hotel. He asked how and I said I would just come up with something, he agreed since there wasn’t another option. The first hotel I could think of was the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. I knew they would be empty and assumed they would be happy to have Officers on site given everything that was happening. I made the call, spoke with the manager, and he invited us come on over. They comped us on everything and their only request was that we park our units up front so anyone coming to cause problems would see them.

We decided to drive across Manchester Boulevard to the hotel in downtown LA. I knew Manchester very well, having driven it hundreds of times going to Kings games at the Forum. It was so surreal to see the area pitch black with so much damage and seemingly being the only ones out and about. So many businesses were gone, and it seemed there was a burned-out car in the road every couple blocks. We passed a couple armored vehicles parked on side streets then soon saw a pair of heads approaching from behind us. We couldn’t tell who it was, so we moved to the right lane and were starting to prepare for trouble when we saw it was a convoy of 30 Los Angeles County Sheriff’s units with four deputies in each car. Only the lead unit had headlights on every other unit behind was blacked out, we assumed they might have been out hunting for problems trying to appear as if there was just a solo vehicle. The sight of that LASD convoy passing us was so incredible, put the gravity of the situation in to perspective.

The next couple days we were assigned to guard the general area of Manchester and Crenshaw in Inglewood, it was mostly to show a presence and deter further unrest. We were able to assist Inglewood PD with a few calls, a shots fired and a looting in progress, but those calls were uneventful. It did allow us a chance to talk with the Inglewood officers about the first part of the rioting which was insane, I remember talking with Sergeant John Bell after clearing a Nix Check Cashing store which someone had reported being “re-looted”. I knew who Bell was, he was somewhat of a legend, having survived some intense situations. Bell told us that he was in three pursuits and two shootings on the first night of the riots. He described driving up to the front of a liquor store he thought was just being looted only to discover it was an armed robbery in progress and having to engage the suspects. Later that night I spoke with a couple more Inglewood officers in an unmarked unit on another call. They said their primary assignment that night was to go to “shots fired” and “man with a gun” calls before other officers in marked units arrived. Both officers had been in so many shootings the first two days of the riots the extra magazines on their belts were empty. The department had apparently run out of duty ammo because officers had been in so many shootings. They described the agency being in a “no hits no paper” mode because of how overwhelming things had been. They said if someone shot at them, they would try to return fire and get out of the area as fast as possible then come back later with numbers and check to see if they had hit anyone. I could tell how much stress they had been through with the looks on their faces. One side note about Nix Check Cashing, which is a chain of check cashing storefronts still around today, while we were there a couple guys drove up and asked us if Nix was open. We said they were closed because it had been looted. The guys lamented that they needed to cash their welfare checks but couldn’t find anyplace open because they had all been looted or burned. We suggested they drive out of the area, and they said they didn’t have enough gas because all the gas stations had also been looted and shut down. This interaction highlighted the lack of thought with the rioting. One other incredible thing I saw during the riots was the massive line of 3000 people at the main post office for South Central LA when people had to go down in person to get their welfare checks because all letter carrier service had been suspended because the area was too dangerous.

We patrolled around the neighborhoods some and interacted with people the best we could. I consider a lot of Inglewood as middle class, definitely nicer than South Central LA, and most the residents are good people. The neighborhoods were very well cared for, lots of older well-kept single-family homes. The homes were in good repair, lawns were mowed, hedges trimmed, most with a decent car in the driveway, and almost everyone with security bars on the windows. But it also seemed like every block had one house that was the local gang or crack house. Trash in the yard, broken down car out front, and bullet holes in the stucco. It still pisses me off to think of how many decent people were living behind bars because of the gangsters on their block, and how many more people today are subjected to crime. It was blatant who was involved in the looting and rioting. We stopped in front of one of those gangster houses and chatted with a guy putting a new car stereo in his ride. The guy said he had just bought it but we all knew where it came from but there was no way to prove it. All the stores had been closed for several days and he didn’t have a receipt. We then drove the alley behind the house and found a pile of old furniture and an old TV, they were not even trying to hide the fact they had been out looting. Most the people I spoke to were happy we were there and supported us. About a quarter of the people were just pissed off. Pissed off at how LAPD treated people they contacted but at the same time pissed off at the gangsters that committed the crime which created the law enforcement response. They were also livid with the people who destroyed their neighborhood. The rest of the people, mostly the ones involved in crime and causing problems, just hated us and didn’t mind letting us know about it.

I was able to photograph some while I was there although I was limited in how much time I could spend doing it. Somehow I lost one of my rolls of film, one that had images of the burned-out cars in the street, If I remember correctly from the area of Florence and Normandie, but I still have the images in my mind. My portrait of “Bill”, who owned a laundromat, in front of burned-out business is one of my favorites. He was such a gentleman, in talking to him I knew how much effort he put in to building his business and it made me mad they destroyed his business for something he had absolutely no responsibility for. His faith was impressive and I assume he rebounded well. I have other photographs which document the devastation of the fires and looting. I remember photographing a bank where the giant main steel support beam for the roof bent from the intensity of the fire being left to burn out, the only thing left inside the walls was the vault, it was insane to think how hot that fire must have been.

I knew at the time that I pretty much missed out things with the riots. I had so many friends at other agencies who were in the middle of the fight as were a lot of press photographers at the time. I was able to witness and document the aftermath still and have a good understanding of the atmosphere, but that was about it.

With the 30th Anniversary of the Los Angeles Riots this weekend I wanted to take a moment to share these photographs and the story of my experience. I am fearful how history is being rewritten lately, and it is important we remember things as accurately as possible to prevent repeating previous mistakes or creating new problems.

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