Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Atlanta Tea Party

I didn't know about the Atlanta Tea Party until I saw a friend on FB post something and then I checked it out. While leaving work I noticed a ton of people getting on MARTA with signs and wearing red so I thought that this would be a good time to go and try some photojournalism. I sort of regret not taking pictures of the gas lines when we had those in GA so I didn't want to miss this too. I debated...I forgot my jeans in OH and I didn't want to wear work shoes cause they hurt my feet but finally I just put on some pants, a jacket and my running shoes and headed on my way. MARTA was PACKED!!! I was sort of afraid that people would be mean or that they would know that I voted for Obama or something...obviously that was so silly, but it was going through my head. When I got there I found that people were pretty nice. I heard a lot that I didn't necessarily agree with but they were at least nice in talking about it and they were all happy to let me take their picture with their signs :-) I saw a lot of other amatur photographers like me there so I guess no one minded. For anyone who has no idea what I am talking about. Here is the website.

Here is my first attempt at photo journalism. I made it into a collage and then featured a couple at the bottom. If you click on the picture you can see it a lot bigger and read all of the signs. I didn't get a few of them...like the "vets are not terrorists". I had no idea that anyone thought that any vets were terrorists. Some of the others were funny...mainly cause they were straight off of the above website which means that the people had no creativity and some were funny because they were creative. Even though I don't agree with some of what was said (and honestly didn't listen to it because I was trying to get pictures of as many signs as I could before I froze), I do think that it is great to be in a country where people are allowed to express their opinions!
I thought that these guys should win for best costume...it kind of made me wonder if they just had these laying around or if they got them especially for the occassion.

This guy was a close second though.....I saw him as I was leaving and asked if I could take his picture and he paused for me...except that I was typing an email on my bb when I saw him and I had to switch it all in my hand and turn on my camera and it took me a second.....I think that he regretted saying I could take his picture :-)I did also see a guy with tea bags hanging from his hat and it made me wonder if he knew the slang meaning of tea bags (yes, I am a 12 year old boy...blame Family Guy and Craig's obsession with it).

This delayed my Ohio trip pictures cause it took me a while to make the collage so hopefully I will have those tomorrow!

5 comments:

Rebecca said...

I heard on the radio this morning, apparently Anderson Cooper used the term "tea bagging" 4 or 5 times yesterday on the air. He seems about as straight-laced as they come!

Drena said...

good job!

Zane Hollingsworth said...

Good pics. I've had to take pics of some of Kim's protest type stuff & had to sit through some of her friends wonderful protest videos & without a doubt, crazies come out of the woodwork to protest. Not the tea parties in particular, but all protests, from the left & the right. If you ask questions about why they are protesting, a large portion can't tell you anything other than what is on their signs. They do make for good, funny pics though.

m said...

From the WSJ. Yes, some people think vet are more likely to be homeland terrorists. Crazy, but true.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123992665198727459.html

Mel said...

@ meghan, yeah one of my Republican friends at work explained it to me yesterday after I was telling her about that sign. I have to say though, the article you attached led me more to believe that they were concerned about white supremacy groups who happened to contain vets...not like they thought all vets were terrorists. On a side note, war does do crazy things to people, it is sad how some of our vets return to us :-( Anyway, thanks for clearing it up...obviously it was a major news story that I missed....this darn multi-city living will do that to you.