No King’s Day – Saturday June 14th, 2025

Saturday was a perfect day. The sky was sunny and the temperature barely reached 70 degrees. And of course it was a Saturday. Ideal weather. No work to stress about. A number of cameras in the bag.

Here’s what I packed for the day:

  1. A classic Polaroid SX-70 camera w/ color & black and white film cartridges at the ready.
  2. My Nikon D7500 w/ Tamron 18-400mm lens.
  3. My new/old Pentax K1000 SE, an assortment of zoom and prime lenses, and four rolls of 35mm (Porta, FujiFilm, and TriX).

Typically I like to have a medium format, a 110, and something else with me, but Saturday was special. I wanted to get in on the No King’s Day protests. I wanted to get as many pictures as possible. I wanted to give people a voice.

My wife didn’t want to join me. She was concerned about riots, as was her family in the Netherlands (they’ve been watching America go from a partner and friend to the class clown), but she agreed to at least come with me to downtown Portland where we parked, ten or more blocks away from any potential concerns, then walked down towards the Saturday Market where we split ways, she towards whatever booth with ear rings and such, me through the growing swatch of protestors collecting near at the waterfront.

I can honestly say I’ve never experience a day, at least as a photo hobbyist, that was so target rich. I’d barely breath before the next potential picture sung out at me. One after another I snapped off black on whites on the D7500 and colors on the Pentax. An hour in I was ready to go full film so the Nikon went back in the bag and it was one shot after another. Roll down! Roll down! Next one in! I pushed in and out of the crowds, walked against the crowds marching down Natio Parkway, framing, snapping, framing, snapping. I crouched down behind a planter to change film, stood up, and there was my manager from work. What the hell? But she was their with her daughter, she didn’t care about my automated reports that day, so we hugged, I snapped a quick photo, and we parted ways, them following the flow of the crowd, me against.

Later, after it was all over and done with I met up with my wife and we stopped at a restaurant where I tried oysters for the first time in my life. They were delicious. I didn’t want the day to be over. I wanted to get more pictures. I want to have vegan tacos at the nearby vegan strip club. But alas, I knew the day was winding down and it was time to drop of those four rolls for development before Blue Moon Camera and Machine closed its doors for the day.

I saw nothing of the riots and hatred the MAGA movement speaks of. What I saw that day was the full expression of people exercising their first amendment rights to free speech and peaceful assembly. I saw happy people joining together in a common chorus. I saw folks cheering on the fire department and police officers that were there to keep things going smoothly. I saw America as it should be. And I gave them a voice.

I hope as I continue in my journey as a photographer I have more and more opportunities to find and photograph events such as this. I mean, I love street photography, but I want my photography to give humanity a voice. For now I simply share those snapshots on FaceBook and Flickr, but someday I hope to reach a larger audience, to really speak, to say something meaningful that moves people. For now I simply have fun.

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