The Faces of Protest
Hasselblad Master August Bradley was intrigued by
the protests taking place against global capitalism in Wall Street
and decided to set up a personal project to look closer at the
people who were out on the street.
In New York to speak at the Hasselblad/Broncolor Shoot NYC
event, August Bradley, Hasselblad's Up & Coming Master for
2008, was intrigued by the protestors who had been besieging Wall
Street for two months to protest about the financial meltdown in
the world's economy. "The entire movement seemed to me like this
big mystery," he says. "There are no front people and no
personalities widely identified with it. It's as if the entire
movement was behind a mask, making the mask an appropriate
symbol."
Determined to get a
sense of the situation for himself, August headed down to Wall
Street the Monday after his seminar to set up a series of portraits
and to try to get a greater understanding about who the people
behind the Occupy Wall St. (OWS) movement really were. To give the
idea a solid framework, August decided to concentrate all of his
shooting into a single day and to photograph everyone in the same
way. The camera and lens combination for the project was a
Hasselblad H3DII-31 and 100mm f/2.2 and everyone was lit with a
single Broncolor A2L lithium battery strobe pack with a Bron Mobil
LED head fitted with a small grided softbox, suspended at the end
of a pole that was held by his assistant.
The project caught the imagination of the media and took off in
a way that August had never anticipated. "The site went live late
on a Wednesday and I posted about it on my blog, Facebook, and
Twitter account (@augustbradley)," he says. "That sent a big spike
in traffic and resulted in hundreds of Twitter tweets and Facebook
posts, and The Washington Post and New York Times both picked up
the story and ran with it early the next week.
"I knew the project
would get some attention because the occupation was a headline with
a growing momentum. But had no idea it would go as far as it did
and so quickly: I'm still getting requests from publications
all over the world who want to use the pictures and run the story."
More information: www.99facesOfOccupyWallSt.org
www.augustbradley.com
Hasselblad wishes to make it clear that it is
completely impartial with regard to the OWS Movement and its aim is
simply to report the story behind a very striking series of
portraits.