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A Trump Rally in Pictures
I attended Donald Trump’s rally at the Collier County Fairgrounds in Naples, FL on Sunday. As I also had a previous career as a professional photographer and photojournalist for a dozen years, I also gave myself the assignment to document the rally and how people were using their smartphones to broadcast and remember what was going on. To make matters even more interesting (and to further demonstrate how empowered we are as individuals thanks to the internet and our smartphones), I shot, edited, uploaded, and composed this post using nothing but my iPhone.
We are the media, and the deer now have guns. What that will mean for 2020 and beyond, I don’t know. What I do know is that 15 years ago, it would have taken me hours (if not days) to develop the film for this story and get it out to the public. Now, the only reason why I couldn’t send out pictures as they happened was because I had a lousy cell signal at the fairgrounds and had to wait until I encountered better coverage.
The future of media is quite literally in our hands.
All images copyright 2016 by Kevin Creighton
Published in General
If I infringe your copyright what caliber gun will you hunt me down with?
Thanks Kevin for putting us in the event. Do all those people standing on the bleachers with their phones actually listen to what is being said or are they just busy showing folks not there that they are there?
Thank you Kevin, for reporting on the event. Did you meet any interesting people?
That’s my America. And I’ll stand with them no matter what derision the left and the establishmentarian right hurl my way.
Thanks for your reporting and for the pics.
How beautiful. The pictures and the rally are very inspiring. Thank you.
You, sir, are good at this.
Was the crowd as sparse as it appears in the bleacher shot?
If this is the caliber of your work with a cell phone, I can only image what you’ve done with a camera. Do you have any photos of political activities from previous years you can share with us?
Nice pictures. What is involved in copyrighting a picture? Is it as simple as declaring them as copyrighted when you publish? You are declaring these are mine and you can’t copy them without my permission. Yet it is hard for me to believe it would be that simple and make that much sense. Nothing else seems to work that way.
No, not at all. That shot was taken as Trump’s helicopter was circling the field as it departed. Probably 2/3’rds of the crowd had left by then. Here’s a panorama taken at the height of the rally. Trump, from the podium, said that the gates were closed at the rally when attendance topped 12,000. Now, this is the reddest of red counties here in South Florida, but considering they gave 24 hours notice, getting this turnout to show up on the first non-rainy day we’ve had in months here is pretty spectacular.
:D
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Actually, yeah, it is that simple. Unless you have a contract saying that you are doing “work for hire”, you enter one of those many photo contests that offer exposure or small bits of cash in return for your pictures you give them or you post on a site that says in the Terms & Conditions that they own anything you upload, you own the copyright of your creative work the instant it’s created.
SAW a bunch of interesting people (it was, after all, a pep rally), but no, most of the people I talked with were really boring, salt of the earth types.
Actually, I don’t. This was the first rally I’ve attended outside of the NRA convention.
And it’s never about the tools, it’s about what’s around you and how it looks. When I was working in a studio, my favorite camera wasn’t my Hassies or the Sinar P2 or my extensive collection of Nikons, it was my beat up little Olympus XA, because I could take that anywhere, and did. My photo heroes are Gene Smith, Robert Frank, Gary Winograd… guys who saw life as it happened, and stopped to take pictures before it went away.
How did it feel being one of the youngest people in the crowd?
I was pretty much on the old side of the crowd. It’s not yet snowbird season here, so it was locals who turned out and not retirees. Lots of young couples and college-age students.
There was a lady next to me who spent the entire time with her phone in the air (held vertically, of course), recording Trump’s speech.
I can and I can’t understand that. I can understand spending your time recording it if you wanted to save the moment for someone who couldn’t be there, but the moment was not the speech. The speech, if anything, was the most ephemeral and transient event of the day. It was the crowd, the sense of belonging and cheering for the same team. In fact, I may have shouted “BLOCK THAT KICK!” when the rest of crowd was shouting “LOCK HER UP!”… I was confused and thought it was a pep rally, not a political rally. :D
Damn shame that these fine people only have this clown to represent them.
GOP’s shame is this clown is their fault.
Tanks!Thanks!That is hilarious – perfect for Halloween
Outstanding pictures and catching the moment – happy to hear younger people are catching the political bug – and it looked peaceful – I thought South Florida had a large democratic population? Thanks for your post today!
“Hispanas for Trump” all fit into the back seat of this car, right?
Ah, the Olympus XA. I bought mine in 1980 and kept it with me until I went digital. I also had a number of SLRs I could use instead but usually found myself with the XA in hand when things were happening.
Eventually I stopped carrying a camera for a few years because I found myself photographing life instead of experiencing it. I had fabulous vacation pictures; I just couldn’t remember what it was like watching icebergs calving in Glacier Bay.
I’d love to see some pictures from a Clinton-Kaine rally too! Ha ha!
There might not be too many…
(image from here)