Photojournalist Nate Gowdy Releases Intense Images from the Jan 6 Riot

Via Peta Pixel

January 31, 2023

Nate Gowdy: 5:07:45 PM, January 6, 2021, US Capitol, Washington, DC

Two years on from the Jan. 6 riots, an attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters, a photojournalist has released his photos from that fateful day.

For his new book Insurrection, Nate Gowdy tells PetaPixel that he was mistaken by some members of the mob as their “fellow patriot,” others assaulted him for being part of the “fake news.”

“Brave photojournalists had to endure hell to navigate that day better than I did,” Gowdy says.

“Many risked endless aggressions to document the battlefront and gore from up close. Not me. Lacking the necessary gear and armor for a combat zone, I captured the wider view. Instead of zooming in with my feet, I often took a step back.”

Gowdy says he was attacked by a group of Proud Boys in the morning and a second time in the afternoon after the perimeter barricades to the Capitol grounds were breached.

“A few insurgents mistook me as a fellow ‘patriot,’ offering water for my burning eyes, confiding in me, and even lending a hand,” he explains.

“The rest of them monitored me with suspicious glares. Because I wasn’t repping my press badge, they couldn’t be 100 percent sure I wasn’t on their team. If I could do it over, I’d cover my N95 with an American flag bandana.

“All afternoon, I worked discreetly, often facing the opposite direction as my lens was pointed, shooting with outstretched arms or from the hip. I religiously avoided eye contact, lest these people take notice of the fear in my eyes. It helped that my lens was wide enough that I didn’t have to point directly at someone in order to include them in my frames.”

Gowdy traveled to D.C. from Seattle to cover what was supposed to be a political rally for Rolling Stone magazine, no different from the many assignments he had been on previously.

But he soon realized that this would be much different and because of the holiday season, Gowdy didn’t have all of his usual gear and was forced to borrow some from a colleague.

“I struggled to adapt to my friend’s custom presets. For the life of me, I couldn’t get used to his ‘back-button AF,’ which separated AF activation from the shutter release,” explains Gowdy

“In no position to troubleshoot, I reset the camera, which made matters worse by somehow removing the AF function altogether! I can laugh at it now, but in my ten years as a photographer, I had never once used manual focus. I’m here to tell you that at a violent insurrection, it’s a difficult thing to learn.”

Virtually all of the photos were taken on Gowdy’s Lecia Q’s fixed 28mm lens and a flash that his friend had lent him.

3:19:18 PM, January 6, 2021, Washington, DC

“Locked between thousands of rioters at the Inauguration Day stand, I was immobile for long periods. The camera’s focal length forced me to focus on and prioritize the subjects and scenes right before me,” he adds.

The Pictures Almost Never Existed

After escaping without serious injury, Gowdy then had the utter devastation of his Leica Q, hard drives, laptop, and all of his pictures being stolen from Washington’s Union Station as he was traveling back to Seattle.

“It was one of the lowest points of my career, and I would’ve given anything to recover these photographs,” he says.

Luckily, one of his friends spotted the camera listed on an online marketplace and Gowdy messaged the seller who claimed to have “found” his backpack that contained all of his stuff. The crook then demanded $2,000.

“Very fortunately, the thief agreed to return to the scene of the crime and to make an exchange the following day at Union Station with a friend of mine,” explains Gowdy.

“Amtrak Police went above and beyond to work with my friend to coordinate a safe and successful sting operation. Everything was returned in time for me to photograph Biden’s inauguration day.”

The 150-page hardcover edition of Insurrection by Nate Gowdy is available via his website.

“If you’re curious to read the only available book of photojournalism about what it was like to be in the middle of the mob on January 6, I encourage you to pick it up,” he adds.

Bill Eppridge's Photograph in the NY Times Obituary for Bobby Hull

 Via The New York Times

January 30, 2023

Hull’s slap shot over the years was measured at between 97 and 120 miles per hour.

Credit...Bill Eppridge/The LIFE Picture Collection

View more of Bill Epprdge's photography here

Short biographical video:  The Legacy of Bill Eppridge

David Butow Photographs Star Ballroom Shooting Memorials and Resilience for CNN

 Via CNN

January 29, 2023

By Elizabeth Wolfe, CNN. Photographs by David Butow

After tragedy struck Monterey Park’s vibrant dance community, residents insist they will return to their beloved ballroom --click for full article.

People gather at the Monterey Park City Hall for a candlelight vigil honoring 11 victims of a mass shooting in the city on Lunar New Year's Eve.

The gates outside the Star Ballroom Dance Studio have become surrounded by a makeshift memorial.

The gates outside the Star Ballroom Dance Studio have become surrounded by a makeshift memorial.

Kevin Leung stands outside of the dance studio where he rented space for years to teach Kung Fu and traditional lion dancing. He knew two of those killed in the shooting.

A show celebrating acclaimed photographer Tony Vaccaro at Santa Fe’s Monroe Gallery of Photography (112 Don Gaspar) can be viewed for five more days—through Jan. 29

 Via The Santa Fe Reporter

January 25, 2023

Honoring Vaccaro

Speaking of countdowns, a show celebrating acclaimed photographer Tony Vaccaro at Santa Fe’s Monroe Gallery of Photography (112 Don Gaspar) can be viewed for five more days—through Jan. 29. Monroe mounted two exhibitions—here and a New York pop-up last month—to honor Vaccaro’s 100th birthday; the photographer died on Dec. 28, just eight days after his centennial, which he celebrated in New York with friends at a surprise birthday dinner. 

A New York Times obituary recounts how Vaccaro became a war photographer in World War II—also the subject of a 2016 HBO documentary. After the war, he transitioned and began to make fashion, travel and celebrity photographs for the country’s leading magazines. 

Those celebrities included Georgia O’Keeffe, whom Life magazine assigned Vaccaro to photograph in 1960. O’Keeffe expected a more famous photographer and at first refused to pose: “To win her over, Mr. Vaccaro cooked a meal and made a picnic lunch. When the weather turned too windy for the picnic, he gave her a plate of Swiss cheese as she sat in the back of his car. And when she playfully peered through a hole in a piece of the cheese, Mr. Vaccaro went into action,” the obituary reads. His other famous subjects included John F. Kennedy, Pablo Picasso and Sophie Loren, to name a few. 

This quote from Vaccaro accompanies Monroe’s information on the exhibition: “We call each other German, French, Italian. There is no Italian blood. There is no French blood. It’s human blood. On this Earth there is one humanity. Let’s do something about it. Let’s live! In a way, photography was my way of telling the world, ‘We have better things to do than to kill ourselves.’”

Ashley Gilbertson Photographs in January 15, 2023 NY Times

 Via The New York Times

January 14, 2023

How Montana Took a Hard Right Turn Toward Christian Nationalism

What happened to a state known for its political independence?

Photographs by Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times

“If you want to live here,” a chapter president of the Montana Federation of Republican Women said, “be a Christian.” 

Credit Ashley Gilbertson

A flag near Red Lodge, Montana

Credit Ashley Gilbertson

The party convention in Billings last summer. Montana was one of the most politically independent states, but Republicans have recently managed to secure an ironclad grip over state politics.

Credit. Ashley Gilbertson

A sign advertising the Republican Party near Red Lodge, a city in southern Montana. In 2021, the Legislature passed a bill banning transgender athletes on sports teams at public schools and universities, an increased tax credit benefiting private Christian schools and numerous anti-abortion laws.

Credit Ashley Gilbertson

Ashley Gilbertson is an Australian photographer and writer living in New York. His photograph from the Jan. 6 attack was part of the Times entry that was a finalist in the breaking-news-reporting category of the Pulitzer Prizes in 2022.

Poor People’s Art: A (Short) Visual History of Poverty in the United States; Artist's talk with Nina Berman January 12

 

January 13 – March 4, 2023

University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum

Nina Berman: John Bonner and Richard Huntly, from the series The Black Boys of Dozier, 2013 

Thousands of boys, mainly black, passed through Dozier since it opened in 1901 as a reform school for wayward boys. But allegations over the years suggest it functioned more like a slave labor camp, with verified reports of children being hog tied and shackled. The name of the institution changed as each successive administration installed its own brand of punishment and forced labor, finally closing in 2011, not because of allegations, but according to the State, because of budget issues.

Panel discussion Thursday, January 12 with artists featured in Poor People’s Art: A (Short) Visual History of Poverty in the United States, including Nina Berman, Rico Gatson, and Jason Lazarus. Curator Christian Viveros-Fauné will lead the conversation exploring issues and topics addressed in the exhibition. This event is free and open to the public, Facebook live link here.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is well known for his “I Have a Dream” speech, yet much less emphasis is placed on his campaign to seek justice for America’s poor, “The Poor People’s Campaign.” This was a multi-cultural, multi-faith, multi-racial movement aimed at uniting poor people and their allies to demand an end to poverty and inequality. Fifty-three years after Dr. King’s death, the Reverend William Barber II launched a contemporary push to fulfill MLK’s ambitious brief — one that calls for a “revolution of values” that unites poor and impacted communities across the country. The exhibition Poor People’s Art: A (Short) Visual History of Poverty in the United States represents a visual response to Dr. King’s “last great dream” as well as Reverend Barber’s recent “National Call for Moral Revival.”

With artworks spanning more than 50 years, the exhibition is divided into two parts: Resurrection (1968-1994) and Revival (1995-2022). Resurrection includes photographs, paintings, prints, videos, sculptures, books, and ephemera made by a radically inclusive company of American artists, from Jill Freedman's photographs of Resurrection City, the tent enclave that King's followers erected on the National Mall in 1968, to John Ahearns' plaster cast sculpture Luis Fuentes, South Bronx (1979). Revival offers contemporary engagement across a range of approaches, materials, and points of view. Conceived in a declared opposition to poverty, racism, militarism, environmental destruction, health inequities, and other interlocking injustices, this exhibition shows how artists in the US have visualized poverty and its myriad knock-on effects since 1968. Participating artists include John Ahearn, Nina Berman, Martha De la Cruz, Jill Freedman, Rico Gatson, Mark Thomas Gibson, Corita Kent, Jason Lazarus, Miguel Luciano, Hiram Maristany, Narsiso Martinez, Adrian Piper, Robert Rauschenberg, Rodrigo Valenzuela, William Villalongo & Shraddha Ramani.

Poor People’s Art is curated by Christian Viveros-Fauné, CAM Curator-at-Large and organized by the USF Contemporary Art Museum.   Exhibition Press Release

War-scarred land: Nina Berman and Ashley Gilbertson featured in award-winning book depicting collateral damage of U.S. military at home

Via The Harvard Gazette

In her recent book and accompanying exhibition, “Devour the Land” — honored at the 2022 PhotoBook Awards — curator Makeda Best considers how photographers have responded to the U.S. military’s impact on the environment since the 1970s.

Below, the Richard L. Menschel Curator of Photography at the Harvard Art Museums walks us through a few of the images she selected. (Full post here)

A Housing Development Bordering the Starmet Superfund Site, Concord, Mass., USA” (July 3, 2016) by Nina Berman, American (b. New York, N.Y. 1960). © Nina Berman; image courtesy of Nina Berman

Just outside Walden Pond, a toxic dump

Nina Berman’s photograph was made in nearby Concord. Made at sites across the country, Berman’s series “Acknowledgment of Danger” takes its title from a waiver visitors must sign before entering the toxic grounds of a former military facility. In Concord, she photographed a new housing development in early morning light. Concord is known for its connections to the Revolutionary War and to the U.S. environmental movement. (The pictured site is six miles from Walden Pond, made famous by Henry David Thoreau’s 19th-century nature writing.) Here, Berman draws out this site’s link to modern warfare: Starmet Corp. (formerly Nuclear Metals Inc.) manufactured products from depleted uranium, primarily for armor-piercing ammunition, among other things. The company discharged toxic waste into an unlined holding basin for nearly 30 years, contaminating the soil and groundwater. In 2001, the facility was placed on the National Priorities List, an EPA registry of the nation’s most hazardous sites.

 “A Resident Talks to Workers in the Hunter’s Point Neighborhood of San Francisco, Calif., on May 5, 2017.” From the series “Bombs in Our Backyard” by Ashley Gilbertson, Australian (b. Melbourne 1978). © Ashley Gilbertson/VII; image courtesy of the artist

Story of environmental racism

It was important to me that the exhibition speak to the fact that communities of color are disproportionately impacted by this pollution and toxicity. Ashley Gilbertson made this photograph in a neighborhood in my hometown of San Francisco, called Hunter’s Point. The neighborhood was largely built on a former naval base, today a Superfund site. Growing up, I knew kids who lived here — heard them talk about their eczema and asthma. In 2017-18, Gilbertson, a contributor to the catalog, acclaimed for his photographs of conflict in the Middle East, turned his attention to the U.S., documenting pollution caused by the military for the investigative journalism nonprofit ProPublica. Gilbertson collaborated with journalist Abrahm Lustgarten (another contributor to the catalog) to produce a series of in-depth reports on the pollution from former chemical weapons test sites and the harmful ways the military has chosen to dispose of chemicals and munitions. In his larger series, Gilbertson shows how people and toxins intersect — from illness to activism to labor and daily life in a poisonous environment.

 

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Gallery Photographer Nate Gowdy Interviewed on PBS New Hour for Anniversary of January 6 Insurrection

 

Via PBS News Hour

January 6, 2023

On Jan. 6, 2021, photographer Nate Gowdy was at the U.S. Capitol on assignment for Rolling Stone when what was billed as a pro-Trump rally escalated into an insurrection. He was on his way to take photos of the rally at the Ellipse when groups of people started walking toward the Capitol.

Hours later, Gowdy writes in his new book, he was “caught in a melee of war cries, adrenaline and suddenly surging bodies.”

After covering the mayhem outside the Capitol, Gowdy faced his own chaotic situation days later. His camera and computer with his Jan. 6 images were stolen from Washington’s Union Station.

“I would have sacrificed an arm or a leg to get those photos back,” he said.

Beyond capturing a shocking chapter in American political history, the images were also meant to be the conclusion to a book he had been long working on.

As friends tried to console him and help him replace his equipment, one acquaintance had a lucky, one-in-a-million break, spotting his original gear for sale online, and eventually reuniting him with his images.

“Insurrection,” a recent collection of 124 of Gowdy’s photos, offers a timeline of the day’s events through vivid portraits of the Trump supporters who broke into the complex while Congress counted Electoral College votes to confirm President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.

More than 950 people have been arrested for participating in the Capitol insurrection, the Justice Department reported Wednesday — two days ahead of the attack’s two-year anniversary. Hundreds of demonstrators and law enforcement officers were physically injured. The Capitol building sustained $1.5 million in damage. Eighteen journalists were assaulted and news equipment and cameras were damaged, according to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. Nine deaths have been connected to the attack and its aftermath.

“Almost four years prior to Jan. 6, 2021, I stood in the audience at the Inauguration Day stand and stared in disbelief as [President-elect Trump] vowed to uphold the Constitution and to end the specter of societal ‘American carnage,’” Gowdy said. “Now I found myself in the space – one historically reserved for solemn and dignified assembly – as it was flooded with true American carnage.”

Gowdy has worked since 2011 as a photographer for various editorial and commercial clients. He has also produced exhibitions and projects, including “The American Superhero Project” – a series of patriotic portraits featuring people of all stripes – and “Our Students, Their Stories: Celebrating LGBTQ+ Students, Families, and Staff,” a project commissioned by Seattle Public Schools.

Trump rallies became a focus of Gowdy’s work in recent years, he says in an attempt to better understand the movement. “I wanted to make photographs that could help us bridge this divide potentially. And now I see that because, again, we see what we want to see, they [my images] only perpetuate the divide, certainly with the climate we’re in. That’s not what I set out to do, but that’s what it’s become.”

The PBS NewsHour spoke with Gowdy by phone and email over the last few weeks about his experience covering the Jan. 6 attack and what led to his new book.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Some of the photos featured in this story are graphic.

I’m curious how you came to be on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6. What led up to that?

Time magazine had reached out after I photographed a Bernie [Sanders] rally here in downtown Seattle being interrupted by Black Lives Matter demonstrators. … And that kind of gave me the confidence to get out there and do it. … I ended up getting the Bernie Sanders cover of Time magazine in June of 2016. … At the time, I’d only had a camera for four and a half years. So that was pretty cool.

The whole time I was out there traveling, self-funding these trips to primary states, sleeping in rental cars and doing what I had to do just to get the photos while this was happening. I thought the whole Trump-MAGA thing was a blip and I thought I had to catch it then and it would be over soon. And, you know, it didn’t end…

I saw Jan. 6 as Trump’s last stand. Excuse my language, but I knew it would be a stupid day. … I didn’t anticipate it being deadly and what it was.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Some of the photos featured in this story are graphic.

I’m curious how you came to be on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6. What led up to that?

Time magazine had reached out after I photographed a Bernie [Sanders] rally here in downtown Seattle being interrupted by Black Lives Matter demonstrators. … And that kind of gave me the confidence to get out there and do it. … I ended up getting the Bernie Sanders cover of Time magazine in June of 2016. … At the time, I’d only had a camera for four and a half years. So that was pretty cool.

The whole time I was out there traveling, self-funding these trips to primary states, sleeping in rental cars and doing what I had to do just to get the photos while this was happening. I thought the whole Trump-MAGA thing was a blip and I thought I had to catch it then and it would be over soon. And, you know, it didn’t end…

I saw Jan. 6 as Trump’s last stand. Excuse my language, but I knew it would be a stupid day. … I didn’t anticipate it being deadly and what it was.

Did you ever go inside the Capitol at any point during the day?

No, I did not. … Everyone on that terrace where the inauguration platform [was on the West Front of the Capitol] had their backs to us. And so there was obviously something going on behind them. And that’s where the battle for the tunnel was. And that’s why I got to a higher elevation to have a view of it. But I didn’t want to be in the middle of it.

I didn’t have any protective gear, whereas a lot of my colleagues out there that day were militarized – wearing gas masks, goggles, helmets, boots, kneepads, you name it. But that also worked to “other” them, … whereas, I was wearing a maroon hoodie and Carhartt beanie and, besides my N95 mask and cameras othering me, a lot of people who were suspicious of me couldn’t be 100 percent certain I wasn’t a fellow “patriot” for the cause.

You were able to kind of blend in a little bit.

Yeah, I think in ways that worked to my advantage. But, that said, I was still attacked twice that day for having cameras.

How have you been since that day? How has what you saw affected you? Are you doing okay?

A lot of people care about me and ask that question a lot. And my response is that I don’t feel like I have any lingering trauma from that day. A whole lot of people do. And I’m just fine.

The trauma I experienced regarding that day didn’t have to do with the danger and the chaos or the events of Jan. 6. They had to do with on my way back to Seattle – … my camera, my computer and my photos were stolen. I’d just witnessed and photographed the most historic thing I’ve been to. And suddenly that was all gone, but for the 25 medium-res JPEGs I delivered to Rolling Stone.

Tell me about that.

This book’s photos were almost lost. On Jan. 8 at Union Station, my backpack—in it, my camera, hard drives, and laptop—were stolen. If not for the sleuthing efforts of an acquaintance, this book would not exist. Just two days after the theft, he found my camera listed on an online marketplace. I messaged the seller that it was unmistakably my Leica Q and laptop. Silence.

So close yet so far from recovering my things and particularly these images, I boarded my flight home to Seattle. Upon landing, I learned that the seller wanted me to call them. Over the phone, they claimed that they had “found” my backpack. “Praise be to God,” they exclaimed, for putting us in a position to help each other—as they attempted to extort $2,000.

Very fortunately, they agreed to return to the scene of the crime for the exchange the following day at Union Station with my friend. Amtrak Police officers went above and beyond to work with him to arrange a safe and successful sting operation. For a multitude of reasons, I didn’t press charges. The detained individual was banned from Union Station, but didn’t spend the night in jail.

What gave you the idea for a book?

I’ve been a photographer since I got a camera in 2011, and I’ve always been kind of pretty obsessed with photo books. Photography is the only thing that I let myself collect and get materialistic about. And so I’ve always kind of done long-form documentary projects in anticipation of curating the archives into books. And I’ve just never had the means to do that. And so I’ve wanted to do this for a long time. …

What spurred me to do this one was my ex-partner’s parents. When I met them, they’re very Trumpian. I love talking politics, but I tried to redirect away from politics with them. But when I mentioned, you know, I was there at the Capitol on Jan. 6 at the insurrection, her father threw a fit and made a scene at the restaurant we were at – at just me calling it an insurrection. That’s when I got the idea that, “Wow, people need to see this. They need something they can hold in their hands and point to and say, ‘Yes, this happened. Look, here it is.’”

Related: A Seattle photographer’s firsthand account of the Jan. 6 chaos | Crosscut