Found in the latest issue of
Der Spiegel is my mini coverage of the post-Zuccotti Park efforts of the Occupy movement in New York City. Writer Georg Diez and I tracked all over Brooklyn and downtown over a couple of soggy days meeting with activists and journalists connected to the protests which has now shifted gears "from Wall Street to Main Street." Most of what we did was pretty run and gun and good pictures were scant, but it was incredibly enlightening to meet a bunch of smart, engaged people with no shortage of big ideas.
The story was highlighted by an action in East New York to move a family into a bank foreclosed home (illegally of course), and I enjoyed the block party that was thrown in celebration (above). It's pretty rare for me to work cheek to jowl with a large group of daily media, and it was fun to slide back into that role though the many well meaning citizen journalists covering the OWS were certainly frustrating. I was impressed by the way the police, who had a huge presence, contained the situation... keeping everyone safe but really not interfering at all.
As a liberal and a business owner, the Occupy movement fills with me a whole lot of conflicting emotions. I'm proud of these activists taking a stand and engaging in the process (who among us are not angry at the collapse), demanding attention be paid to such incredible greed and stupidity which created a system in which the banks could so deeply fuck so many lives of hard working Americans. On the other hand the OWS movement pisses me off in its silliness, pretension, and total lack of momentum towards a national policy initiative that balances the Tea Party (OWS had a window to get involved in the primaries and they totally missed it). I get that the point is that there are no leaders and no focused message, but I also see the movement as a mirror image of ineffective bureaucracy with the system they are against. Also I grew very tired of the word "horizontal." Below: N+1 founder, journalist and activist Keith Gesson, left, and protestor/architect Evan Wagner, right.
The deal is that if you send me to Kentucky on assignment, I will buy you (and myself) bourbon. (There are other deals in place for Napa, Mexico, Barbados/Jamaica/DR/Haiti/Cuba, Scotland, and Russia). Amazingly Men's Journal didn't really care about the bourbon, but they sent me to Kentucky anyway to photograph sportscaster and former Cincinnati Bengals star WR Cris Collinsworth. Cris had just flown back home from his Sunday night gig, and we met up with him at high school football practice where he is a assistant/receivers coach (his son Jack is on the team).
It was tough going early on (it's always hard to shoot coaching during an actual practice, unless its linebackers and the coach is right up in there) but eventually we got some beautiful light and Cris was great to be around despite being tired (he reminded me a lot of my Uncle Eric actually). I brought plenty of strobes not knowing what I would find, but of course we ended up barely using any of them, especially in a final portrait of Cris and his son up in the "home" section of the stands, which felt like a nice metaphor for how it might feel for Cris to return to his family after his constant traveling. You just don't mess with beautiful light when you've gifted it like that.
Afterwards we went back to the Collinsworth home and photographed Cris watching the weekend games and making notes (down in his "man cave" office) for his matchup the following week (can't remember exactly but it was the Vikings vs. someone). I was already a fan of Cris' analysis and I really like his distinctive voice, but I had no clue how much tape and research he puts in all year long. He told me he watches more tape now than he ever did as a player. And for those who are also fans of America's native spirit... my final tally was around $600, including 6 bottles of my absolute favorite: Vintage 17 year. 
