It was a student protest against apartheid in South Africa, circa 1985 and there was a march from Boston University over the Mass Ave bridge to MIT - maybe 100 students or so. I shot a lot of protests and political rallies but after shooting punk shows, like Black Flag performing live, they always seemed kind of tame to me - that was about to change.
The protestors had their banners, signs and chants going and the Boston Police were everywhere. I didn’t see anyone who looked like press, no TV, no photojournalists from The Boston Globe or Herald and no one who looked like a freelancer - just students, cops and me.
As they’re crossing the bridge, a few protestors left the sidewalk and were marching down the yellow line. That really pissed the cops off and a cruiser pulls up, cops get out and they start arresting the students they can catch and throw a couple in the back of the car.
Protestors further ahead turned back and just about everyone walked into traffic and surrounded that one police car, rocking it with the cops and fellow protestors inside.
This definitely was getting a little hotter than a mosh pit.
I’m blowing through frames on three cameras - two old Canon F-1’s and one Leica M3, switching back and forth between them.
Cops roll in towards the action from both ends of the bridge, including a truck to arrest lots of people. I am running around, trying to shoot the battles between cops and protestors and not get too close… one camera’s out of film, then the second camera’s done.
That’s when things are at their hottest. I’ve got one live camera with a 28mm lens on it, a wide-angle lens, and that means to get a good picture, I have to get close to the subject. Or I get out of the action and switch lenses or reload a camera. Guess what I chose…
Keep shooting! If I chose to reload, I would’ve missed that shot, which ended up in The Boston Globe.
I kill the third camera, run to the sidewalk, reload two cameras as fast as I can and look up to find the next place to shoot. I hear a woman screaming and I start running towards the sound, not knowing where it’s coming from. A wave of cops are arresting protestors, but they’re still outnumbered.
I notice a paddy wagon with five of Boston’s finest pinning a couple of protestors, including a woman, she’s screaming. A camera is pulled off her, being held above the mess by one cop as he hands it off to another. I want to get closer and run to where I can get a good shot.
Camera’s up to my eye, focusing, I can see her and the cops over the hood of the truck - then the frame goes black and there’s a thunk sound -
I am facing a cop, he’s holding a baton, the camera falls and the strap catches it against the back of my neck.
He just knocked my camera out of my hands with a baton.
“No pictures,” was the directive. ”But” was as far as I got before he threatened to arrest me. I’m pissed and he can see it, but he’s got a baton and a lot of co-workers. We stood there for a millisecond, him waiting for me to move, me still not quite believing what I was facing. Surrounded by protestors screaming with their hands zipped in plastic cuffs.
I back off. I know what happens to the film if I get arrested, I don’t get it back.
I circle trying to keep track of the cop with the baton, but I lose him in the wading pool of police in front of me. At some point I decide to start shooting again and no one stops me, but things had calmed down.
What’s left of the protestors get to MIT and I find a payphone, remember those. I call The Boston Globe, get a photo editor on the phone and tell him what I have. He says they already have someone shooting it. ”Whoever you have here does not have what I have.” He tells me to come on over.
I cab it to The Globe, get to the right place and they take my film, develop it and print it with the film still not completely dry. Welcome to photojournalism. They asked me to caption the picture. I wrote something, they didn’t use it and wrote something else, but they published it and I got paid.
That camera never needed a repair and I kept shooting with it for years. Gotta love metal camera bodies!
I wish that was the only time a cop threatened to arrest me for taking a picture, it wasn’t.
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