
The Occupy Wall Street movement began about a month and a half ago, and since then has spread a cities worldwide, including Irvine and Santa Ana right here in Orange County. Regular readers of this blog will know that my photographic genre can best be described as cat pictures biological macro photography: I take pictures of spiders, mice, plants, and other such things.

Over the weekend I decided to try my hand at some documentary street photography, and headed down to the Occupy Orange County – Irvine camp to see what was going on.

The camp was fairly quiet on Sunday around sunset, so I focused on documenting the environment, including the sea of tents that has popped up.

But what people really think of for the Occupy movement is people holding signs; I came back on Monday evening at rush hour and found many more folks out and about with signs:



The folks at the camp were incredibly friendly. Even though they were being hurled insults by the dozens at times, they just waved back and called out “I love you!”, as though an old friend had just driven by.


Everyone at the camp was happy to see someone with a camera (often mistaking me for a journalist, admittedly), and all freely gave permission to have their pictures taken. From the photographic side of things, it was a pleasing technical challenge, as most of the protesters were either standing with their backs to the sun or had sunlit backgrounds, so I got to play with my light balancing skills.


Occupy Orange County’s Irvine camp has a permission from the City Council to camp at the location for at least the next week, so scenes like this should continue:

Fellow photographers: As this was my first attempt at street photography in a very long time, any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.
More pictures
To see more pictures from the two days, head to my Occupy Orange County – Oct 30 and 31 gallery or click on the thumbnails below.
Getting There
Occupy Orange County – Irvine: Their camp is located at the corner of Harvard and Alton in Irvine, CA; the Occupy Orange County website has driving directions and parking information.
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