The Protest Rally That Wasn't

First off, while driving to downtown L.A. this morning, I realized that my previous update was incomplete... very incomplete! I neglected to mention something very important: You guys!

Yep, you! The readers of this blog. You're the big reason this blog is on Website Grader's "A" list and I want to thank you for your ongoing support.

Okay. Now that I'm done sucking ass, you can keep pelting me with pennies--you guys are doing great with that--and, if you have a spare couple of minutes, keep reading.

I said I was gonna head to downtown L.A. this morning for the photographers' rights rally and I did. I'm just not sure if anyone else did.

I arrived at Pershing Square at about 11:45. The rally was supposed to start at 11:30 but, when I arrived, there sure didn't look like any sort of rally was taking place. I circled Pershing Square 3 or 4 times; not an easy thing to do given all the one-way streets in downtown L.A. I was looking for people with signs, cameras, signs and cameras, anything that might indicate they were there for a photographers' rally. I saw no one that seemed to fit the bill. Yeah, there were some people there in Pershing Square: Mostly touristy looking folks and some down-on-their-luck street-peeps, but no one that I could see who remotely looked like they were there for a rally. Any sort of rally.

I was bummed, disappointed, and generally disheartened. I have no idea if the previous evening's rally took place in Long Beach, at the Port of Los Angeles, like it was scheduled, but it sure didn't look like anything was happening in Pershing Square. So, I drove back home, stopping to treat myself to a muy sabroso brunch at a Mexican eatery not far from where I live. Yeah, I sometimes eat when I'm bummed. And, sometimes I don't. Today, I did.

I was hoping to be able to write a lively report about the rally. I was ready to take some action photos of the event. Instead, my camera and I headed home for huevos rancheros and other Mexican breakfast fare.

Oh well. If any L.A. photographers complain about being hassled for photographing things in a perfectly legal way, they can't say I didn't give a care. I did. And I still do. I just won't be sucked into spending the cost of a half-tank of gas to show my support and solidarity for this issue and the photographers who are plagued by it.

The pretty girl at the top, sitting in that beat-up wooden chair in a gritty warehouse not far from where today's rally was supposed to take place, is Chayse. It's from a shoot back in April of this year. Chayse lit with a 5' Photoflex Octodome and a couple of shoot-thru-modified kickers behind her on either side. The windowed, overhead door in the BG also contributed to the edge-lighting on her skin and hair. I could have lit Chayse so the image would reveal what was outside the glass windows but I didn't because it wasn't much of a view. So, instead, I decided to blow it out... the light from the outside, that is. Not the glass itself.