Photojouralist Annie Appel documented “Occupy Los Angeles” – but that just inspired her to keep going
Right now, I’m thinking that the best friend an activist-for-change can have is a sympathetic photojournalist.
Last October, Annie Appel grabbed her Rolleiflex camera, stuffed her pockets with black and white film, reached for her black journal, and headed up the 110 Freeway from San Pedro. She wanted to see for herself what Occupy L.A. was all about. Months later, having taken hundreds of portraits – not only in Los Angeles but all over the country – she’s still documenting the people and the causes they champion.
“I heard what was going on because I follow the news very carefully,” Appel says, referring mainly to alternative outlets. “I knew what was going on in Wall Street in New York and I was itching to go. But no way could I go. Then when it burst onto the scene in L.A. it was only a matter of about a week when I said I’ve got to go see what this is.”
When the fog lifted
When Appel arrived at 7 a.m. most of the protesters were asleep in their tents, which they had set up on the lawn just outside of City Hall. However, she quickly encountered a young man named Marco who looked more like a bandit than a social activist. Except for his eyes, Marco had covered up his entire face, seeking to conceal his identity.
Nonetheless, Appel approached him and said, “If you could fix one thing (within the system) and were granted one wish, what would you do? And his answer was ‘Free education.’”
Appel was floored; she got goose bumps. “I thought, Oh my god, I have to come back here; I’m gonna come back every Thursday. This is incredible.
“You don’t anticipate that ‘free education’ is foremost on this gentleman’s thoughts, this 20-year-old masked man, behind his bandana, looking with this glare into the camera.”
Even before that first drive up the 110, Appel had had an immediate sense of solidarity with the men and women of Occupy Los Angeles.
“Like 99 percent of the people out there,” she says, “I’ve been unhappy with the way things are in society – low wages and pollution and debt and all these things that seem insurmountable.” What Appel had felt until then was helplessness, “that there was nothing I could do as an individual or as an artist that would even make a dent in changing things or fixing things or addressing world hunger and poverty and lack of medical care.
“That’s been brewing in me for as long as it’s been brewing in everybody else I know,” she continues. But when the average person realizes there’s so very little they can accomplish on their own, the result is often despair and apathy. However…
“From the moment I showed up that first day at Occupy to see what was happening, that fog lifted, and that sense of despair lifted because here was a group gathered to do something about it and to bring attention to what the problems are.”
At the end of her book, Occupy Los Angeles, Appel quotes anthropologist Margaret Mead: “Never underestimate the power of a small group of people to change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.”
Having their say
Under each portrait in the book are a few words or a sentence by the subject in response to what outcome they would like to see as a result of the Occupy movement.
Many of the replies are sweepingly general. Some, such as Marco’s “free education,” sound pretty good, although Ricky’s “to be able to get an education without a high expense” seems more feasible as a goal.
One young man, Tomas, hopes for “greater emphasis on our environment, food, and health-related issues.” The litany also includes jobs, housing, more political choices, the end of wars of aggression, and financial accountability. There are, of course, issues that are necessary but which we are loathe to entrust to any government, such as sustainable population growth so that the quality of life will not slip out of control.
Each portrait, Appel says, took about 30 minutes. First she talks at length with her subject to get a sense of who they are, and this helps her determine how to shoot them. For their cooperation, each person receives a free print. She also informs them that she’s not making any money from this endeavor, but that if there is a profit – through sales of her book – then 100 percent of it is donated to the Occupy media-only group to help them in getting the word out.
No one declined to be photographed. What is fairly surprising, considering the aesthetic quality of the images in the book – or currently on the walls of Appel’s gallery in San Pedro – is that only two pictures were taken of each person or group.
And why is that?
“Because it’s five bucks per portrait,” Appel replies. “I take a second frame only because if something happened in the processing. It’s all shot film, not digital. So if there happens to be some damage on a negative or maybe there was an eye blink, then I have a second shot.”
In each case, though, and she carefully wrote it down verbatim, Appel made sure she had their statement first.
“I had to know who they were before I could do a meaningful portrait of them. What’s your issue? Is it environment? Is it economy? Is it jobs? Is it greed? Everybody has something – and then I could identify with whatever that was and make a portrait that reflects that somehow.”
Did some of them initially not know what to say?
“There’s always people that needed to search around for their words,” Appel replies, “and there’s just as many people that knew exactly their one issue. ‘Oh, that’s easy: corporate greed in America.’ And other people going, ‘There’s so many issues I can’t pick one.’ But everybody can pinpoint the one thing, the deal-breaker that made [them] get out and come here and say, ‘That’s it, no way, they took my house.’”
And then, just so that each person would be clear about the picture…
“I would always tell them,” Appel says, “this is not a portrait of you, this is a portrait of a movement. This is a portrait of a successful movement that’s already changed the master narrative; it’s already changed what politicians are talking about, what the press is dealing with. It’s changed the worldwide dialogue, and we’re just gonna work out the details.
“So, with a sense of accomplishment,” in words that Appel is addressing to her subjects, “let me do the portrait and let me thank you for the brave, courageous act, intelligent, relentless activism that you have given to the world and [are] helping to make things better.
“And then there’s a calm that comes down, and you see the image,” Appel says. “Because I mean it. It’s really brave to be out there. It’s scary.”
A record of the time
Appel returned to the Ocupy Los Angeles site each Thursday, her day off, for eight straight weeks, and during that time she averaged about 12 portraits per eight- or ten-hour day.
As the weeks went by, Appel would often encounter many of the same people. Occasionally, they would lead her to others whom she would photograph, but it was “mostly just walking and seeing who you connect with.”
Also, since anyone who would objectively document the site would focus on more than just the activists, Appel turned her camera on the law enforcement officers as well.
“I did portraits of police from the first day,” she says, “because they were there.” She also notes that – of all the cities that she has gone to – L.A. cops were more willing to participate and to talk on the record. In other cities, the police answered her with “No comment” every time.
Altogether, how many portraits did you take?
“There’s 107 from L.A,” Appel replies. “When they closed L.A. down – and November 27 was the first day of the three-day eviction in L.A. – I thought, okay, I’m done: I’m gonna continue shooting until they’re not camped out anymore.” However, “within days I realized I had to go see other places that were protesting too.”
Where did you go?
“I went to Portland; Olympia, Washington; Tacoma; Seattle; Wall Street in New York City; New Haven, Connecticut; Newark, New Jersey; Oakland; Venice, California; Washington, D.C.; and ending with Chicago.
“There were about 500 portraits, 500 people,” Appel says.
“Because I was interviewing people across the country and asking them for their specific hope for change in the world and what Occupy could help to bring about, it was very clear to me right away that there was a cohesiveness of thought and interaction, even if the right-wing media would have you believe otherwise.
“Everybody had an answer, and when you added it up across the country with 500 portraits, there’s specific themes winding their way through all of the groups that really delineate a core group of concerns and values and goals.”
The Occupy Los Angeles portraits have already been published, but what about subsequent images taken across the country?
“The completion of this work is in the form of a book,” Appel explains. “Each portrait [will appear] in the order that it was shot. It’s in the works, as fast as possible so that the movement can use it” because “what I saw in the press was not at all what I met there in the occupied groups.”
One of the biggest impressions made upon Appel was the sense of community and solidarity that she found no matter which Occupy camp she traveled to.
“There was a feeling of being at home that I’d never felt before amongst the groups wherever I went, all across the country, and I think the thing that bonds activists together is that you cannot really, truly, be an activist if there isn’t some part of you that’s an optimist. Some little kernel of optimism and hope for better times and better ways has got to be part of your makeup, or you would just stay at home and curse at the television.”
The Occupy Portraits, a photo essay, by Annie Appel, is on view through June 30 at Gallery 381, located at 381 W. Sixth St., San Pedro. Open to the public during the First Thursday Art Walk on June 7. Call (310) 809-5082 or go to theoccupyportraits.com. ER
