“No Kings” Protest on Film

Like this past June, I turned up to my local No Kings protest event with a film camera to do a little personal photojournalism. But rather than lug around one of my beautiful yet heavy Nikon F camera bodies, I opted for my lighter Nikon FM10, which, in all frankness, I think of more as an expendable knockaround camera than not.

I also shot with my 35-105mm f/3.5-4.5 Nikon zoom lens. I’m glad I grabbed it. In spite of its slightly awkward operation—I’ve never liked its clumsy slide-back-and-forth zoom action—I appreciated having had flexibility in terms of its good range in focal length.

With a roll of Ilford FP4 Plus loaded into my camera, I got some decent people shots, which in the final analysis was all that I was after. In particular, I got a bit less shy about engaging with people and getting up close when photographing them. It was definitely good practice along those lines.

This is the fourth protest event I’ve attended with a film camera (see here, here, and here for the other three). I love the more deliberate approach that shooting film generally encourages. But sometimes slower is not better. I’m pleased with what I accomplished, but I confess that a good part of me wishes I had gone for my Canon EOS R8 instead.

I also have to confess that I was in a fouler mood this time around. Before I went, I wasn’t even sure whether I really wanted to go to begin with. “I’ve seen all of this before,” I remember thinking to myself. “Nothing new is being done here. This is just more of the same old same old.” I wandered up and down the street once, got my photographs, and decided to leave well before the event was due to end. Besides, the introvert in me can only take so much noise, and like last time there was plenty of it in the form of car honking and the like. Unlike last time, when I shot through two whole rolls of film, I ended up making only seven exposures, and one of them was the result of me firing the shutter by mistake.

In spite of the overall friendly and festive atmosphere, I began to wonder what all these people were accomplishing beyond giving each other comfort in the fact that they weren’t alone in their political views. I respect the exercise of free speech. But I think that what we need most these days is not more catchy slogans on signs but instead things that are far more difficult to do: more conversation, more efforts to understand each other, and more willingness to move beyond some of our shibboleths. I don’t think current tactics on either side are changing people’s minds much.

Is it foolish to have hope for finding common ground? Or have we been dwelling so long in our various social media bubbles that the overwhelming majority of us are hopelessly polarized? And are we ultimately allowing those who profit the most from that polarization to win?