discarted

I’ve been called a lot of things in my lifetime, some good and some bad.  But after the Espinoza video was released in 2010, a working photographer based in Los Angeles, who I thought was a friend, sent me an email calling me a fauxtog — ouch.

Hate this fauxtog more than the drunkk

So it’s a great feeling when you’re the only photographer to capture the most important moment of the anti-war rally that took place in Hollywood on March 19 — which was the arrests of 11 brave members of Military Families Speak Out for staging a sit-in at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.

As you will see in my photos, there aren’t any other photographers or paid news crews capturing this moment — just me — and that’s because I figured out where LAPD was going to bring these women after they were detained and escorted inside a building and kept there for about 20 minutes.

LAPD was actually really good about respecting these women, and it seemed like they genuinely felt bad about arresting them for trespassing. So to avoid some embarrassment during the perp walk, it appears the police kept the women from public view in an effort to disperse the crowd and avoid the cameras.

It worked.

However, I noticed a collection of patrol units and a ton of cops gathering just up the street near another exit from the building. Once I saw this, I knew the women would be brought out this way.

This is not the first time I’ve out-shot the non-fauxtogs based in LA who get paid to take pictures for a living (some of whom I know I could shoot out of a job if their editors were willing).

However, when you shoot film there’s no reason to hustle to get your pictures to a news agency or editors because by the time the roll finishes rewinding, a story like this has already been published.