Portraits of Occupy Wall Street: "OccupiedNYC"

Fetzer, 51, From Waitsboro, North Carolina. Military Veteran, Arabic Linguist.

Boing Boing reader Eddie McShane, aka Macdawg, has been doing an amazing portrait series of people at the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York City. He shared some of the photographs in Boing Boing's Flickr pool. I spotted them while skimming the pool for interesting new contributions from our readers, and was blown away. I asked him to tell us more about the project. Eddie writes:

I live in New York City and until this week I had been following the protests via the internet and watching them grow but I didn't know how to get involved.

I have two jobs, and no money or resources to donate, so I decided to go down there and offer the one thing that I felt was useful: my time and skills as a photographer.

I wanted to show the faces of the occupiers and their supporters in a studio style setting, blank and deviod of any other context in order to highlight the human face of this protest.

The representation in the media has been that this is a bunch of unruly, hippie kids having a party downtown and that is simply not true. There are people from all walks of life and an incredible diversity of ages, races, and opinions and I wanted to show them as they wanted to be portrayed, simply, as people.

I have been down there in between working and when I am home I am editing furiously. I have to run off now to my day job but I am planning on continuing this series in what spare time I can carve out of my other obligations.

Eddie now has a tumblog where you can see the photos all in one set: OccupiedNYC.

Earl, 41, From Queens, New York

• [komradefox]

  woo Orioles Magic!

• [Timothy Krause]

  Those are really amazing portraits. Taking the protesters out of the context of the park is a brilliant idea, nicely done!

• [grimc]

  Nobody’s going to take OWS seriously if people keep dressing like that.

  I mean, an Orioles jacket? They haven’t finished above .500 for at least ten years!

• [Aram Jahn]

  The Orioles jacket is clearly a ruse. That guy knew full well that wearing his Yankee$ jacket would send the wrong message. An Orioles jacket just screams “underdog”…or 99%er….or “losing out to the more well-funded teams since Reagan got in and started voodoo economics.”

  Okay, that was a bit of a stretch. 

• [travtastic]

  Look at all those dirty hippies!

• [Mark_Frauenfelder]

  Love these photos of people who care deeply about their country and the world.

  • [Teller]

    And baseball!

• [cstatman]

  Xeni,   when?  when are we going to NYC?   for at least 2 days     Just say the word, I’ll pack a bag.    oops, off to send some more pizzas…  ciao

• [BBNinja]

  Hey, it’s the guy that makes all that salad dressing! (Newman’s Own)

• [SLN]

  HOLY CRAP! It’s Black Earl Douglas!

• [Mister44]

  A great series. I don’t know what is going on here, but I want to party with this dude: http://www.flickr.com/photos/macdawg/6237606653/

• [Jeremy Escobar]

  This calls for a new Black Earl song. Where’s Brother Joe?

• [erin jones]

  Eddie McShane, thank you so much for this excellent documentary photography. The portraits are vibrant and beautiful. And I’m so grateful you’ve devoted so much energy to representing the actual people who make up OWS. 

  I have been frustrated but not at all surprised at the stereotyped images pumped out through larger media outlets. When I am adding my voice (in SF), I see every sub-community of my city and the larger Bay Area represented in the streets. When viewing other photos taken by participants, I see that same reflection.

  But those outlets owned or influenced by the 1% sure must love them some drum circles and ratty green and orange dreads. They can’t seem to stay away.

  Maybe it’s their college selves yearning to return to the parking lot at shows. “Hey bruh, I need a Miracle, man. Can you guys, like, swing your dreads around more, like, while you’re playing? And you know, look more ecstatic and dervish-like. We really want to capture the 2011 version of that troubled  teen on Dragnet, the dude who was freaking out on acid and irreversibly annihilating his chromosomes and his spinal fluid. Yeah, that’s perfect! Can you roll your eyes back in your head a bit more? Golden.”

• [typhonic]

  The group is surprisingly homogeneous. I can help much. I kind of look like that, too.