Still No Kings

Despite the continual presence of small groups of protestors all over the country, declaring a nationwide event can motivate a movement and make the news. There were two No Kings gatherings in Oshkosh.

In the morning, Winnebago Indivisible organized things in Rainbow Park.

That was supposed to be the table for Shirts and Destroy, a local print shop that I have to give a shout out to for giving away T-Shirts and well-designed signs.

Big signs for the big issues from the organizers.

The representation of inflated costumes was a little lower than in the past, but they were still around. Or somebody has installed Pokémon Go on my pinhole camera.

This sign held the text of the First Amendment, which is practically a dare to get out and disagree with loathsome behavior.

This activist was happy to pose with her No Kings crown, which is a pair of sunglasses that would have been difficult to wear with her warm chapeau. It was below freezing in the Fox River wind.

There were several dogs in attendance. Two others would only show their south sides when facing north, but Cody turned and held this three-quarter profile.

One theme was that an election is not license to have everything decided by one madman and a reminder to his wimpy enablers how the process works.

I waited a while for the light to change. Just as it turned red, this hood-scooped pickup with a loud exhaust sped toward the intersection and braked hard to stop, drawing an audible gasp from the protesters. I only heard about one MAGAt rolling down the window and spewing invectives at us.

A miniaturized Portland Frog.

A colorful assessment of who ICE is recruiting.

Utilizing a Wisconsin resource to get your message a little altitude.

My friend Kathy Donnelly handing out voting information cards.

 

After noon, the scene shifted to Opera Square with Peaceful Patriots. The more confined space made the crowd seem larger. That's Shirts and Destroy there again in the lower right corner.

Crowns and markers for your own slogan. I can't carry a sign and a tripod and decided earlier not to cut out a crown with my Cricut cutter because it's a No Kings rally, but if everybody's a king, that's different.

This drummer has been refusing his permission for me to photograph him, which I honored until I saw him very clearly depicted in a YouTube video. I don't think I've invaded his privacy. In a public demonstration, that First Amendment gives me as much a right to report his presence as I would have if I noticed the President was mentioned more in the Epstein Files than anyone else.

It doesn't take much of a hint of spring to bring out this sort of outfit. This is one of my favorite photographic mergers recently. Doesn't it look like he's holding a tiny sign? It's actually a rather big one, several meters behind him, which just happened to line up with his hand.

Several groups performed atop the sundial. The Singing Resistance Fox Cities "rise up together and connect in song!" although there's a little more bite to their signs and lyrics than their folky music might indicate.

An objective of the national organizers was to include an activist fair where people could connect with the groups who are struggling with the issues we're protesting against and make the movement a little more continuously active. The ACLU was giving away ICE-alert whistles. I had to look up the association of the BANanas.

Other than being a prime number, it took me a second to remember the significance of 8647. Then I noticed the Cheetos. I showed them my Handmaiden photograph from last summer. They didn't know who it was. Kind of weird interacting with them through the veils that just barely revealed their shadowed faces, only illuminated by that dim red light.

A theatrical group. I suspect the purple door has some metaphoric allusion to a less polarized future. The shark's character was identified as ICE.

Uncle Sam blasting with a matching red stadium horn.

Another drummer with a kit was fine with being photographed. He's actually sitting still in the photograph, just gesturing with his hands while talking to the camera-shy drummer, who's just out of the frame.

There were a lot of people who were also at the morning event. The woman with the Peace Symbol was on the snow pile earlier, now joined by this union promoter, both of whom really validate my choice of color film.

Confiteor

It may seem I'm an altruistic documentarian, but I happen to be film testing several cameras that I have been obsessively making for the Pinhole Day activities at Photo Opp. One camera for the morning and a different one in the afternoon. I got the on-axis pinhole a little in the wrong place on the second camera, and every frame had about a 15% blockage at the bottom of the frame. All of them have been cropped quite a bit. Did you notice?

Both cameras are Compact 30's with two .25mm pinholes, on the axis and 11mm above it, 30mm from a 6x6cm frame. The film is Kodak Gold 200 developed in a Cinestill Powder C-41 kit.

Once again, in order to resist the evil empire, I relied on The Force to determine all the exposure times.