Nulli Reges

Other than being really offended that the Americans rejected his benificent patriarchy, George the Third didn't really have much involvement in the policies that bred the American Revolution. That was Parliament, pretty much an oligarchy at the time. He did support them, and they, him. When it got too expensive to argue with us, and they needed to get back to fighting with France, not swapping out for a new home-grown royal line made us unique, so let's celebrate that.

The Winnebago region No Kings event, including the Fox Cities and Fond du Lac, took place in Oshkosh at Opera Square, just down the block from where pioneering documentary photographer Lewis Hine grew up. Coincidentally, it also happened to be Flag Day. The theme for the Fox Valley Photography Group this month is An Event. Another of those assignments of all basic photography courses - pick a pre-scheduled event and bring back a picture from it. I chose to use the Diversity 30, as good a protest camera as I've got.

I encountered a Green Bay TV station cameraperson while I was waiting with a crowd to cross what continued to a busy street all during the event. He asked me if he was in my way. I replied, "No, you're in my photograph." He just went back to what he was doing.

This scene across the street is probably what he was recording. I appreciate a linguistic joke to go with the costumes. Remembering the solemnity of the last large public protests I was in, during the Vietnam War, the levity displayed everywhere takes some getting used to. I liked the Yippies and Country Joe McDonald back then, and getting attention is the first level of Krathwohl's Hierarchy of the Affective Domain, if you're into Educational Psychology. Yes, I am one of those educated elites, although most of my career, I was considered practically uneducated.

With people spread a block either way down two streets at one of Oshkosh's central intersections and crowded around the sundial, it was hard to capture the scale of the event.

There was a PA system and several people spoke into it, but they couldn't be understood more than a few meters away. It seemed a very decentralized affair until you blocked a walkway or stepped over the curb, and a volunteer with a vest apologized and asked you to stop that.

I struggled to stay out of a walkway as I stood waiting for this costumed individual to turn toward me. The wide angle made it easy to get an up-angled view and have the entire figure in the frame in this crowded environment. Google's AI tells me "This technique can make the subject appear larger, more powerful, or dominant, and can also create a sense of awe or intimidation." Yeah, that's what I'm going for. Smash the Patriarchy. Everyone seemed to recognize what I was doing was taking a photograph, and no one mentioned my odd way of doing it except for a few people who recognized me from Photo Opp events.

A young man with his family reminding us white folks not to be too proud of ourselves.

Nice integration of ideas to bring Evolution into it.

There was a lot of conversation going on, but it seemed every time I began talking to someone, a chant would break out next to me.

A guitarist and his dog set up on the other side of the park and started playing Bob Marley's Stand Up For Your Rights. It occurs to me that a lot of those chants could easily be set to 12-bar blues. That could give a person something to do during these events. There's a portable Pignose amp somewhere in the basement, and it's probably too optimistic to think we won't be doing this again.

That makes a good segue into the other event I covered last week, a group of very experienced rock n' rollers getting together to jam to 12-bar blues and other three-chord rock in a basement.

They've got a new rookie rythm guitar player trying to inject a little metal into the mix.

The Diversity 30 has two .23mm pinholes, on the axis and 10mm above it, 30mm from a 6x6cm frame. The film is Kodak Gold 200 developed in a Cinestill liter powder C41 kit.