It can be both mesmerizing and inspiring to see the thousands of people that have filled the streets of cities and towns in the weeks since the police killing of George Floyd. They fan out from parks and squares, fill up side streets, move through thoroughfares, their message amplified by sheer numbers. But Al J. Thompson, a photographer who is originally from Jamaica, and who now lives in Rockland County, just outside of the Bronx, prefers to focus on the faces of the individuals within the surging masses. During recent protests, including those at New York’s City Hall and in the Bronx, Thompson has moved through the crowds looking for subjects, whom he photographs individually or in small groups. He has found that people lately are eager to be a part of the record. Usually, when taking pictures in the streets, just about half of the people he approaches agree to have their portraits taken; in the recent protests, everyone whom he has asked has said yes.
When someone agrees to be photographed, he asks them to move to the periphery of the crowd, a half-block or so away from the center of the action. In a turbulent moment, Thompson’s portraits are notable for their quietude. “I almost feel like I’ve been in the minority here,” Thompson said. “Violent imagery has its day. But where I come in, what I like to see is not the chaos.” Thompson used to work in fashion, among other industries, and says that fashion photography gave him an education—even when shooting a portrait in the busy and crowded setting of a protest, he is attuned to the need to arrange the light, the sitters, their clothes, and their faces to the best effect.
A striking consistency in these photographs—which show people in different neighborhoods, with different expressions and moods, dressed in different styles—is the beautifully upright posture of the subjects, even in the heat of the summer and in the midst of marches that can be long and arduous; the firmness of the protesters’ resolve is visible in the straightness of their spines. For the black protesters whom he photographs, Thompson’s identity as a black artist offers a point of connection. His exchanges with his subjects are often intimate, even spiritual. “It’s a heavy conversation,” he said. Out of this connection, he hopes that his photos—even though they focus on the individual—communicate the sense of unity that has animated the protests. “It’s not about, This is John, this is Rebecca,” he told me. “I want to direct the audience to understand, We are George Floyd. We are one.”
Race, Policing, and Black Lives Matter Protests
- The death of George Floyd, in context.
- The civil-rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson examines the frustration and despair behind the protests.
- Who, David Remnick asks, is the true agitator behind the racial unrest?
- A sociologist examines the so-called pillars of whiteness that prevent white Americans from confronting racism.
- The Black Lives Matter co-founder Opal Tometi on what it would mean to defund police departments, and what comes next.
- The quest to transform the United States cannot be limited to challenging its brutal police.
