Alongside the protestors’ call for justice, the violent noise of colliding bodies in the searing heat, the hiss of tear gas and the crack of rubber bullets from the barrel of a gun, few noticed the stray clicks of a camera capturing history.
Those frozen frames of tangible anger soon covered newspapers, magazines, websites and social media, captivating thousands with images depicting the nation's unrest.
Yet for some photographers, taking these photos isn't about gaining notoriety.
"We're not here to make beautiful images,” said Taylor Gerlach, a University of Georgia senior and photo editor of UGA’s newspaper. “We're here to tell a story that needs to be told and honor the humanity of the people in that story."
It is necessary to tell other people's stories, Gerlach said, pointing out how journalism is under attack for occasions when the news was "skewed."
"For me, [photos are] like a very accurate portrayal of what is happening," Gerlach said. "And I think photos have a lot more power sometimes to show emotion, connection and humanity."
Angela Wang, a University of Texas senior and UT Athletics student assistant, said protests must be photographed, so what is happening is not disregarded.
"People fifty years from now could say [protestors] were throwing rocks at the police, and that's why they were fired on by rubber bullets, [but] the photos will overwhelmingly show that the police misconduct came first," Wang said.
Hannah Saad, a UA senior, the Crimson White’s photo editor, and a contributing photographer at Alice Magazine, said it is easy for people to ignore words, but not photography.
“When you can see mass crowds gathering for Black Lives Matter that hits differently than someone tweeting like ‘oh there’s a big group in front of the courthouse,’” Saad said. “I can show you what’s going on through photography better than someone can really type out what’s going on.”
She said photographs better highlighted how many protestors’ wanted to speak up during the Black Lives Matter movement.
“People connect better with seeing human emotion from people at these protests and seeing the hurt they’ve been through,” she said.
Daniel Roth, the digital content producer in the Mayor’s office of public information, agreed with Saad’s sentiment, sighting how photography was “an incredibly powerful tool.”
“We saw the power that the video of George Floyd had and what that did to the hearts of our country,” Roth said. “I think photography is in the same line and can be just as powerful. [It] can get you outside of your own bubble and [help you] see that things are happening outside your world.”
Ian Hoppe, a managing producer of news video at Alabama Media Group, summed the importance of photographing protests up when he said, "It's history, man."
Hoppe said when he first got into media, he learned from a seasoned reporter that journalists "don't [just] Google [information] – you go out and get the story, and you become part of the record." He said it made him realize sometimes the story doesn’t exist and journalists have to pull the pieces together using photos as punctuation to a story that becomes the record of an event.
“It’s a difficult, important and rewarding role to have in the world,” he said.
While getting the story, photographers have witnessed and felt the effects of the protest.
"The best photo is the one [where] you're closest to the action,” Hoppe said. “That's always been the case. The best photographers, video journalists, photojournalists ... they're not standing a block away. They're in the action, and sometimes that can be harrowing."
Hoppe said he saw colleagues who were attacked at protests. For him, the protest on June 3, in Huntsville, Alabama, was particularly harrowing.
Hoppe said the protest took place in Big Spring Park and was peaceful until it was shut down earlier than expected. While still marching, the protestors and Hoppe found themselves in a standoff against police officers suited in riot gear armed with rubber bullets, batons and tear gas launchers.
"I had never been tear gassed before then either, so I was anticipating what that would be like. Turns out, it’s pretty awful,” he said. "They unleashed a lot of tear gas, and it was just absolute chaos. I saw kind of the very intense power of a police department in the 21st century unleashed on a group of citizens, which is a pretty moving moment.”
UT’s student assistant Wang said she witnessed many unsettling moments while at protests in Austin, Texas.
She recalled a protest where she saw a woman collapse and be carried away by another protestor. A few days later, she found out the extent of what happened to her.
According to KXAN Austin, the woman had been sitting on the ground when officers shot her with rubber bullets in the stomach, back and back of her head.
"There was absolutely no reason for that," she said.
Yet, while there are harrowing moments, some photographers experienced moments that were impactful in other ways.
"I went to the first protest in Birmingham, and the energy here is always very powerful." Roth said. "So, it's always a powerful experience to be at any sort of rally or protest in Birmingham knowing that you're standing on the ground that people fought very hard for civil and human rights."
Roth said while at the protest, the photograph he liked the most was of two young men holding posters and shouting.
"It's an image of hope for me. It's the next generation participating in something that's been going on since the beginning of the United States," he said.
John Watson, a freelance photographer and Spain Park High School senior, recalled the morning after the riot in Birmingham, Alabama. He'd gone out to take photos downtown and saw a homeless man sitting near the confederate monument picking up trash from the night before.
Jasmine Kennedy, another Birmingham freelancer, said her most memorable moment was during a protest when a little girl held up a sign that said, "Stop killing our dads."
"It was definitely a gut punch," she said. “To have a feeling of fear of knowing there’s a possibility my guardian will not return to me. It’s a feeling of trust on the ends of law enforcement surrounding our future.”
From these moments that create lumps in throats and butterflies in stomachs, photographers are left with photos that linger long after the moment passes. More importantly, they recognize each moment's historical implications.
According to USA Today, there have been at least 1,700 protests in the United States across all fifty states.
"Just seeing the scale of things has been really different for me," Wang said.
She said she had seen protests in Austin before, but none with the momentum of the current movement. She described how the protests occupied multiple locations and somehow seemed to flow as one.
"I've been really amazed at how global it has become," Gerlach said.
She said she was working on an article for UGA's newspaper that compared images of the protests in Athens, Georgia now to prior years: 2012, 2014 and 2016.
Gerlach said in prior years the protests seemed to have a max of a hundred people who were primarily Black. After looking at photos from last weekend's protest, she saw a diverse group of over two thousand people.
"It's been really cool to see how large the movement has become and how widespread it is,” Gerlach said. “It's like so many more people are waking up to the reality of the world we live in and [are]willing to fight for something, which is cool."
Journalist Hoppe expressed his amazement at the Black Lives Matter protests emerging in places like Uganda, Kenya and Bristol.
"I don't remember a movement having this kind of global impact," he said. "The size of this movement has reached a pitch that I never thought I would see."
"Speaking of the context of history, we are walking in it, you know. It's a really cool moment to know that you are in the middle of history; there's nothing like that," Hoppe said.
Every day protestors call for justice, accountability and change, creating historical moments to be captured by photographers who wait on the front lines poised to apprehend the truth and leave it bare for all citizens to assess.
"It's been really cool to be a part of telling the history of this moment," Gerlach said. "I can see how transformative this moment in history is going to be, so I'm really honored to be on the front lines and be able to have people who will share their stories with me and learn from the source."
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