Manifestación for Iran

Saturday evening at Plaça de la Universitat.  Sometime I’ll learn how to take better photos at night…but in a fitting way, the fuzziness implies an aspect of the experience: vision blurred with tears.

Seeing all these people here in Catalunya, families and strangers and activists and musicians, I was amazed at the sheer strength of everyone. And struck at the thought that the pain and anguish among those resisting is reflected in equal measure among the men with machine guns carrying out the repression.  Their lives, too, are hellish.

Overwhelmed by my own emotion, I kept lifting up my camera halfheartedly, and then putting it down again.  It’s like Jay Smooth says: sometimes we have to live our grief directly, without making media out of it.  Sorry I couldn’t translate the moment into better photos to share with you.