Laden...
|
Jan. 24: Week in Photography
Your lens to the internet's most powerful photographs.
📸For Your 👀 Only: Mel D. Cole On Covering The Capitol Mel D. Cole Mel D. Cole went from photographing musicians to capturing the riot at the Capitol, and his stunning images were some of the most widely shared from Jan. 6.
Cole, who is based in New York City, began switching over to more photojournalistic work when COVID started to spread. “It really took its stride when George Floyd died. I dedicated myself and my platform to documenting the Black Lives Matter Movement.”
On Jan. 6, he went to DC prepared to document Donald Trump, his speech, and his supporters at the rally. “I thought that we would march to the Capitol, that there would be some yelling and some counterprotesting. Pretty much I thought that it would be your above average confrontation, but what I didn’t expect was for it to be one of the darkest days in modern American history.”
The inauguration felt a lot safer, Cole said. “There were so many military personnel and law enforcement around — you couldn’t walk one block without seeing someone with a gun or in camouflage. It felt like the government was in total control of what was going. If anyone was going to cause trouble that day, the situation was going to be handled swiftly and forcefully.”
After the chaos of Jan. 6, “it made me feel safe seeing them there.” On the day of the attempted coup, Cole said he felt as though the scene unfolded like a Tom Cruise movie — “the epic, peak part where everything is coming together. I said, Wow, it’s really happening. People are hanging on the scaffolding and scaling the walls.” He knew then he was witnessing something historic.
Mel D. Cole During the riot, Cole was scared — as a Black man and in general. In one video he shot near the end of the day, he said he can see a flash and hear a loud sound, “like a grenade or a bomb. I told the people watching, ‘I’m scared and if I never get to talk to you again, well, it’s been real.’”
At the same time, he said it felt natural to be there. After the coup attempt, Cole said there were moments where he could feel the traumatic effects of the day taking their toll on him, and at times he would feel an urge to cry. Meanwhile, his work was getting a lot of attention online, and he was seeing the positive reaction to what he had been going through — at the coup attempt, with the BLM protests, and through the COVID pandemic.
On Inauguration Day, that fervor wasn’t present in Washington. “I ran into three Trump supporters the whole day — that was it,” Cole said. “There weren’t many protesters there in general. I talked to one guy who claimed he was a poll watcher, and he told me that he accepts Biden as president and thinks that he’s going to do a good job. He believes that there was some voter fraud, but not enough to overturn the election. He just wanted to see what was going on.”
“I also saw two women [Trump supporters] who came to an area where a lot of Biden supporters were gathered. One woman wasn’t really protesting as much as it seemed like she wanted the attention. There were a lot of religious people there as well. Everyone wanted their own agenda heard and very little of it had to do with the Trump counter-election protests.”
Mel D. Cole He hopes it will be a long time before there is another inauguration like this — the high fences, barbed wire, and miles of secure perimeter. “I think that there is a lot that Biden can do to gain my trust again, because Trump totally did nothing but make me not trust him and his administration. I want to see him succeed and help heal the big divide in this country.”
📸THE WEEK'S PHOTO STORIES FROM BUZZFEED NEWS 📸 After three extremely eventful Wednesdays (an insurrection, an impeachment, and then an inauguration), many of us were grateful for a smooth transition into a new administration.
So, as always, here are some of the best photo stories from around the internet, and what we loved this week. THE MOST POWERFUL PHOTOS FROM THE INAUGURATION Alex Wong/Getty Images SEE THE FULL STORYHOW DC RESIDENTS ARE FEELING RIGHT NOW Farrah Skeiky for BuzzFeed News SEE THE FULL STORY
SOME PHOTOS OF INAUGURATION PARTIES AS A REMINDER THAT THIS USED TO BE A FUN EVENT Mark Reinstein / Getty Images SEE THE FULL STORY
📸SOME HOPE 📸 Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images Kamala Harris, MVP, in royal purple by Christopher John Rogers. “We are making photographs to understand what our lives mean to us.”— Ralph Hattersley That's it for this week! Kate + Pia Want More? Go To JPG Homepage
📝 This letter was edited and brought to you by the News Photo team. Kate Bubacz is the photo director based in New York and loves dogs. Pia Peterson is a photo editor based in Brooklyn. You can always reach us here.
BuzzFeed, Inc. |
Laden...
Laden...
© 2024
