I haven’t had much of a chance to keep my website up-to-date until recently.
I’ve been working backwards, so still to come are my photos from Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and China from the summer. However, here are a number of photos from the past few months. View the galleries for more.
The Station fire is huge: 30,000+ acres at the time of writing. Yet, unlike many of the most recent wildfires in Southern California, access is extremely difficult, both for emergency personnel and media alike. Roads, when existent, are hardly big enough for a single car, let alone a fire engine and two-way traffic, making ground access to the fire line nearly impossible and a possible escape dangerous, at best.
I covered a southern line of the fire, moving through Tujunga Canyon towards a neighborhood near Sunland. Hot shots spent all morning clearing debris from the hillside, but luckily the winds were low and air support was strong enough to keep the fire from reaching the hilltop residences.
On a side note, I stumbled upon a visit by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger while I was at the command post looking for an up-to-date map.
At 5:30pm on Tuesday, thousands of Prop 8 protesters rallied in front of San Francisco City Hall. Then they marched past the Supreme Court, down Market Street, and into Yerba Buena Park.
In the park, they staged another rally, albiet to a lower scale. The light was poor and there wasn’t as much emotion in the protesters, so at this point, most of the media left.
I was waiting around in the crowd when I heard some screaming and saw two police officers carrying away a protester, so I immediately ran over and grabbed photos of the arrest.
The crowd in the park followed and encircled the officers, chanting “Let her go!” As the officers disappeared through a police line, a scuffle broke out and a second protester was taken down. The police moved their line down the street in attempt to contain the now outraged crowd, but they left an opening at a crosswalk. Noticing the opening, protesters poured into the street and headed out on a second, completely impromptu march.
The marchers headed back down Market Street towards the Castro District, snaking through different side streets to further throw off the police.
By the time they reached the intersection of Castro and Market, they had effectively lost most of the police, and so they staged a sit-in at the intersection now famous for Harvey Milk’s gay rights movements.
After a little while, everyone stood up and began marching all the way back to Union Square. However, a few blocks later, a truck blasting music and heading in the opposite direction turned the march around. The marchers ended back at the intersection of Market and Castro, and proceeded to take over the streets in the form of a massive dance party.
Crazy.
