{"id":65442,"date":"2014-12-20T14:35:15","date_gmt":"2014-12-20T19:35:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=65442"},"modified":"2014-12-20T14:39:52","modified_gmt":"2014-12-20T19:39:52","slug":"between-protesters-and-police-how-a-photojournalist-got-the-shot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2014\/12\/20\/between-protesters-and-police-how-a-photojournalist-got-the-shot\/","title":{"rendered":"Between Protesters and Police: How a Photojournalist Got “The Shot”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iconic images \u2014 such as a single student standing stoic before Red Army tanks in Tiananmen Square, a protester leaning forward to put a flower into the barrel of a soldier\u2019s gun, or two African-American athletes raising black-gloved fists on the Olympic victory podium \u2014 often seem to shape much of what we \u201cknow\u201d about various historical events or social movements. In our social media, mass culture world, images and interpretations spread fast. But where do these images come from? How and by whom are they produced?<\/p>\n

Last week, wire services photographer Noah Berger found himself behind the lens of a photograph that has the potential to become such an image. In it, a white, plain-clothes police officer in Oakland, CA, aims his gun at protesters and reporters, while his black partner holds down a black protester. At a historical moment when protests are sweeping the country, bringing issues of police violence and the unequal treatment of minorities into public consciousness with slogans like \u201cBlack Lives Matter,\u201d it is perhaps not surprising that the photo seems to have gone viral.<\/p>\n

Sociologist Joshua Page reached out to Berger to discuss the photographer\u2019s experience in creating this powerful image. In an interview, the two talked about the social logistics of photographing protests, the life of a \u201cstringer,\u201d and the struggle to capture the essence\u2014even the sociological significance\u2014of events that have complex backstories and often conflicting meanings in single, silent photographs.<\/p>\n

\"1a\"<\/a>REUTERS\/Noah Berger<\/p>\n

1. The Photo.<\/h3>\n

Page:<\/strong>\u00a0Why was the police officer pointing his gun at people?<\/p>\n

Berger:<\/strong>\u00a0In basic, loose terms, what happened on the night that the plain-clothes officer pulled his gun on the protesters began with protests on the Berkeley campus, about 7:00pm. They disrupted a lecture by, I think, one of the founders of Paypal, but they marched peacefully for a couple of hours. It was about 150 people, and they marched all the way from the Berkeley campus to downtown Oakland\u2014about three miles.<\/p>\n

When it reached downtown Oakland, at 14th\u00a0and Broadway, which is sort of \u201cprotest central,\u201d it started getting a little bit edgier. You could just feel it in the crowd\u2026 Pretty soon after that, the first window got smashed. Then the cell phone store got looted. I watched that happen. I couldn\u2019t take any pictures, but I did watch it.<\/p>\n

So, the protesters kept marching, banging on windows. There was some minor vandalism, and, according to the California Highway Patrol [CHP], when the cell phone store was looted, that was when two officers who had been in a car behind the protest group got out and started walking\u00a0with\u00a0the group. This is all according to the CHP.<\/p>\n

I noticed the officers in the crowd, and I actually thought they looked kind of scary. I made a mental note to stay away from them. They didn\u2019t strike me as cops, they just looked kind of scary. But as far as I saw, they just walked along with the crowd. There have been some reports of them doing other things\u2026 but all I saw them doing was walking along with the group.<\/p>\n

About 20 to 30 minutes after the first vandalism started, a group of roughly 60 people were walking, and someone just turned on these two guys and started yelling that they were cops. Kind of taunting them. More people joined in. At that point, the\u00a0San Francisco Chronicle\u00a0<\/em>photographer tells me, somebody ran up behind the cops and pulled the hat off one of the guys, threw it on the ground. Apparently another person hit one of the officers on the back of the head. This is according to the\u00a0Chronicle.<\/em><\/p>\n

At that point, one of the officers in the crowd and a guy just started scuffling. It just turned into a brawl, and the crowd started advancing on these two officers. At that point, one of the officers pulled out a baton, which you can see in some of the pictures, and he also pulled out his firearm. He kind of aimed at the crowd and swung it around, saying something to the effect of, \u201cStay back! Back off.\u201d He held them off for about 30 seconds until the regular, uniformed officers swooped in from the end of the block. They formed a protective semi-circle around these two guys and the protesters they were detaining, and pushed the other protesters backwards to secure the area.<\/p>\n

Page:<\/strong>\u00a0At what point did he point the gun at the\u00a0Chronicle\u2019s<\/em> photographer?<\/p>\n

Berger:<\/strong>\u00a0I very much doubt that the cop knew the guy was press and was specifically pointing at him. He was holding the crowd back. It was more general, to everybody, \u201cStay back.\u201d And in the picture, his hand isn\u2019t on the trigger. So, I don\u2019t think he was specifically targeting the press. It was just that we were close to him.<\/p>\n

Page:<\/strong>\u00a0Have you been surprised at how widely that image has been circulated and the ways people have interpreted it on Facebook and elsewhere?<\/p>\n

Berger:<\/strong>\u00a0Very much so. Michael Short, the\u00a0Chronicle<\/em> photographer and I, when we talked about it right after it happened, we thought the story was gonna be, \u201cHow crazy is this that a group of protesters knowingly attacked undercover officers?\u201d That\u2019s what we thought was the amazing part of the moment!<\/p>\n

But after that picture came out, it conveyed a different perspective: \u201cHow crazy is it that this undercover cop would pull his weapon on protesters?\u201d It\u2019s a really good case of the picture not showing the whole story. It\u2019s not a lie. It definitely\u00a0is\u00a0part of the story, but it\u2019s not the whole occurrence.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s led to a cascade\u00a0of interest that I\u2019ve never really seen before, which was weird and mostly good. Not\u00a0all\u00a0good, but mostly good.<\/p>\n

2. The job.<\/h3>\n

Page:<\/strong>\u00a0So, what is your job title?<\/p>\n

Berger:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019m a freelance photographer, a \u201cstringer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Page:<\/strong>\u00a0Do you see yourself as a photojournalist?<\/p>\n

Berger:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, I kind of wear two hats. It changes depending on the season, but I spend about 60% of my time on the news and about 40% in corporate or government work. But when I\u2019m out during the protests, I certainly consider myself a photojournalist.<\/p>\n

Page:<\/strong>\u00a0Are there particular assignments you like to take?<\/p>\n

Berger:<\/strong>\u00a0Definitely the protests, the edgier protests are high on my list. That, and wildfires. My favorite assignments are protests and wildfires.<\/p>\n

\"King<\/a>The King Wildfire, 2014. \u00a9 Noah Berger<\/p>\n

Page:<\/strong>\u00a0What is it you like about them?<\/p>\n

Berger:<\/strong>\u00a0The wildfires are great, because you\u2019re in these volatile, somewhat dangerous situations, but no one\u2019s aiming for you, unlike in the protests. You\u2019re out in the woods, trying to get your shot, and you\u2019re not dealing with the public relations side or negotiating society. You\u2019re just on your own.<\/p>\n

The protests, it\u2019s just interesting to see when there are clashes and when the emotions and violence flare up. And on another side, it\u2019s just interesting to see that side of life. It\u2019s something a lot of people don\u2019t witness.<\/p>\n

Page:<\/strong>\u00a0Are there particular types of images you\u2019re looking for when shooting a protest?<\/p>\n

Berger:<\/strong>\u00a0Sure. Working for the wire services like the AP or Reuters, I try to keep in mind one image that sums up an event. I\u2019m not just looking for one image from the night, but I like my images to say something. When you\u2019re working for a wire service, it\u2019s more important to consider an audience outside the local area and know that you\u2019re looking for images that sum up the event.<\/p>\n

Page:<\/strong>\u00a0Those tend to be more dramatic images.<\/p>\n

Berger:<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cDramatic,\u201d like for the police protests, obviously would be something that might have a policeman and a protester in it, and some interaction. But it doesn\u2019t need to be. Reuters, another photographer, got a shot of this guy with fire around him and a sign that said \u201cBlack Lives Matter.\u201d There\u2019s no other context, but it just had a great feeling. So it doesn\u2019t need to be both sides, but I think the photo needs to speak to the whole issue.<\/p>\n

Page:<\/strong>\u00a0How do you know when the picture represents what\u2019s going on?<\/p>\n

Berger:<\/strong>\u00a0You just kind of know when it happens, I guess\u2026<\/p>\n

Page:<\/strong>\u00a0Another shot you had the other day, of\u00a0the freeway stopped in both directions<\/a>, was just amazing.<\/p>\n

Berger:<\/strong>\u00a0That\u2019s actually a little different than I normally shoot; it doesn\u2019t tell the story as quickly as the images I would normally look for. It took me longer to warm to that photo, because it was harder to \u201cread.\u201d You need more context [to know that these are protesters stopping traffic on a freeway].<\/p>\n

Page:<\/strong>\u00a0What\u2019s your process for shooting a protest? How do you know where to go?<\/p>\n

Berger:<\/strong>\u00a0Well, there are a couple different ways. To find out where the protest is gonna be, there\u2019s a website that lists the bigger ones. Twitter has become huge. A lot of these protests are just organized a couple hours before by someone saying, \u201cHey, let\u2019s meet at 7:00 at the corner of _______ and _______,\u201d and that just creates the protest. So, Twitter\u2019s good.<\/p>\n

I also use a police scanner, and I\u2019ll have that on, depending on what the protest is. Like, if there are multiple protest groups roaming the streets, that\u2019s really useful\u2026. The other way is following, if there are multiple groups, following where the police helicopters are. You can look up and kind of figure that out. But the scanner\u2019s a really useful tool.<\/p>\n

3. Interactions: Protesters, Police, and the Press Corps.<\/h3>\n

Page:<\/strong>\u00a0Do you ever get pushback from protesters, get hassled?<\/p>\n

Berger:<\/strong>\u00a0All the time. When I\u2019m out there, my primary concerns are staying safe from protesters, staying safe from the police projectiles or clubs, and just keeping my gear safe.<\/p>\n

Page:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019m sure there must be times when the idea of a protest is to get the images out there and spread the word. Are there times when your relationship with the protesters is more collaborative than antagonistic?<\/p>\n

Berger:<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s not necessarily true, actually, that they want the word out. There\u2019s definitely a large group that does want the world to know what\u2019s going on here\u2026 but a lot of people seem to want to be out there pushing the boundaries of police and society and don\u2019t want it documented.<\/p>\n

Page:<\/strong>\u00a0Is there a sense in some protests that the press is part of the \u201csystem\u201d people are protesting to begin with?<\/p>\n

Berger:<\/strong>\u00a0You do hear that. I\u2019ve had a lot of people that are well meaning come up and say, \u201cThe mainstream media isn\u2019t covering this.\u201d And I\u2019m like, \u201cI\u2019m working for the AP right now. It doesn\u2019t get much more mainstream than that!\u201d \u2026I am a fairly big believer that the mainstream press tries to convey objective, unbiased accounts of what\u2019s going on. We don\u2019t always get it perfectly right, but I think the effort is there. That\u2019s the intent.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Page:<\/strong>\u00a0What does it look like when a protester harasses you?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Berger:<\/strong>\u00a0It can be different forms. The other night, during the looting at the cell phone store, a woman and a man came up to me and just held their cameras up to me and held their middle fingers up and said, \u201cYou\u2019re not gonna take pictures of this. You\u2019re not gonna take pictures of this.\u201d And just followed me wherever I moved. That\u2019s kind of a normal tactic. One of the other photographers, they tried to grab his memory card. There are more threatening forms, where people are just lurking behind you saying, \u201cNo photographs. No photographs.\u201d It\u2019s hard to watch stuff happening and not be able to shoot, but it\u2019s just one of those times you have to let your camera down.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Page:<\/strong>\u00a0What about the police?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Berger:<\/strong>\u00a0For the most part, the police do a fairly good job at respecting the press out there\u2026. There are definitely cases where the police are caught up in the moment and go after you\u2014maybe knowing you\u2019re press, maybe not\u2014but I think they kind of respect the boundary. I have been batoned a lot, but it\u2019s when I put myself between the front line of the protesters and the front line of the police. That\u2019s where you can get the dramatic shots, but you\u2019re kind of asking for it in that spot. It\u2019s a risk of going up there: that you\u2019re gonna catch a baton\u2026 I mean, you can always drop back a little bit. If you drop back from the front line of protesters, you can have a few minutes to collect.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Page:<\/strong>\u00a0How do you interact with other photographers when you\u2019re covering these events?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Berger:<\/strong>\u00a0We definitely work together. We\u2019re very actively backing each other up. Just before this protest, a Reuters photographer got pepper-sprayed by the police and, when he put his gear down, someone who wasn\u2019t part of the protest came and took his gear. Ran off with thousands and thousands of dollars of camera equipment, and another photographer tried to chase them down, unsuccessfully. But anyway, we do stick together. We\u2019ll talk beforehand about who\u2019s going out, sometimes ride in a car together, and we\u2019ll decide together when something\u2019s not safe enough to cover.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
We have a great community of photojournalists. We really do look out for each other. There\u2019s definitely an element of competition\u2014we all want to get the best shot! But the overarching feeling is that we want to keep each other safe.<\/p>\n

4. Framing and Representation.<\/h3>\n

Page:<\/strong>\u00a0Do you think about potential public or political reactions to the images when you\u2019re shooting them?<\/p>\n

Berger:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. And I have a strong belief that we\u2019re showing the world what\u2019s happening in any given situation. I mean, that moment with the handgun coming up, you\u2019re not gonna see that otherwise. There were, plus or minus, three mainstream journalists there, and we\u2019re really the eyes of \u201ctruth\u201d in the bigger, somewhat objective reality that\u2019s being conveyed to the world.<\/p>\n

Page:<\/strong>\u00a0Do you think about how certain images would support particular narratives?<\/p>\n

Berger:<\/strong>\u00a0Sure. I think there\u2019s an inherent bias toward, in protests, the sparky, edgy action shot. It\u2019s not because we want to show protesters [as violent], but it makes for more dramatic pictures\u2026 I don\u2019t ever go into it going, \u201cI\u2019m gonna take a shot that makes this side look like this,\u201d but sometimes when you\u2019re editing, you can see that. \u201cOh, this shot really conveys\u00a0this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Page:<\/strong>\u00a0You\u2019re aware that certain images support certain perspectives, and recognize that sometimes you\u2019re emphasizing the edgier side of a protest when a lot of it is peaceful. Like you were saying, all the way from Berkeley to downtown Oakland\u2026<\/p>\n

Berger:<\/strong>\u00a0I am very conscious of that: one image can convey something that isn\u2019t the whole truth. I try, when I write my caption, to reflect that. When I covered Occupy, if there was a protest where 1,500 people shut down a port and then 100 people broke windows, in my caption I\u2019d say, \u201cAfter a largely peaceful protest of 1,500 people\u2026\u201d There is definitely a responsibility beyond the image.<\/p>\n

Page:<\/strong>\u00a0So, what is\u00a0your\u00a0view of the current wave of protests? Do you think they\u2019re effective? Justified?<\/p>\n

Berger:<\/strong>\u00a0I definitely don\u2019t feel comfortable speaking to whether they\u2019re justified\u2026 I don\u2019t think any mainstream journalist trying to report from an objective position should put out their opinion on an issue they\u2019re covering\u2026. Our job is to stay, to try to stay as objective and neutral and balanced as we can. Telling our opinion would fall outside those boundaries, so it\u2019s not something I\u2019m comfortable talking about. \u2026You could definitely be looking at a group on any side of an issue and think\u2026 \u201cThat\u2019s kind of wacky,\u201d but it\u2019s still your job to stay objective and present all sides to an issue.<\/p>\n

5. Letting Go.<\/h3>\n

Page:<\/strong>\u00a0It must be really interesting to shoot the images, put them out there, and see how people respond to them and use them. I\u2019ve seen this undercover cop photo turned into a meme. Do you pay attention to how they get written up and used?<\/p>\n

Berger:<\/strong>\u00a0On this story, I have been, definitely, but not always. I mean, there are all kinds of ironic things. This one was used as a protest poster for this coming weekend\u2019s protest. I\u2019m sure some of the people, maybe even the people designing the poster, are gonna be out there blocking my camera! Usually, the photos just sort of go off into the media world, and they\u2019re gone for me.<\/p>\n

Joshua Page, PhD, is a professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota<\/a>, where he specializes in crime and deviance. He is the author of The Toughest Beat: Politics, Punishment, and the Prison Officers Union in California<\/a>. This post originally appeared at\u00a0The Society Pages<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Iconic images \u2014 such as a single student standing stoic before Red Army tanks in Tiananmen Square, a protester leaning forward to put a flower into the barrel of a soldier\u2019s gun, or two African-American athletes raising black-gloved fists on the Olympic victory podium \u2014 often seem to shape much of what we \u201cknow\u201d about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":65443,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2014\/12\/1a8.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65442"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65462,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65442\/revisions\/65462"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}