Marilee

I love all of my brothers and sisters in ADAPT and wish I had solid portraits of them all. Marilee has the difficult task of heading-up the ADAPT Media Committee.

There are some things about my general ADAPT photos that I am proud of. One of the longest standing is my focus on individual faces. As I took photos at disability rights actions, it is clear that the thing that people want to capture is the “action.”

But what I found is that the group’s action was made up of a long string of events and feelings. One photo will rarely tell that story. But, I believe that the faces of individuals are an important part and I would always include candid shots of people’s faces as we traveled to and from locations. I tried to tell the story on people’s faces during the action.

I do have a great preference for candid shots. During the Komen races I often have people run in front of me, stop, stick out a knee and cock their head and shoulders looking straight into the camera. They take a pose, and I smile and take their photo.

But I don’t get it. They are here to raise money to prevent Breast Cancer and they take a stylized pose as if they are somewhere else, doing something else. There are a lot of things I do not understand and I suppose it is because I want the candid shot that I am so distracted by the pose.

On the other hand, they want their photo made and I love that.

I used to even tell ADAPT activists that would smile and pose for me that I wouldn’t use those photos.

“You’re here to get people out of nursing homes,” I would say, “I need photos of civil rights activists not a party.”

I toned it down over the years, and especially with social media, I took more photos of smiling, happy activists. At the end of the day I would rifle through about a thousand photos that I had made that day, I would select about 30 for the ADAPT Action Report; that were serious and pointed at the events of the day. I would select about 30 for Facebook, different but may show a lighter side of the day’s action. And another 30 went into an online slide-show of the day's events. I had to create all this before I went to bed for the next day's action.

Social media made the overnight work obsolete, but we lost an archive that would tell the story of the day’s event. With everyone taking photos, the noise became the message and there was not a story to tell.

My first few ADAPT Action reports are still around and they show activist’s faces, the ADAPT action of the day and they tell a story about what we did as a group. I am proud of that work, but it does not translate into the social media age well.

April 10, 2016, 8:35 A.M.

50mm Olympus lens at f 1.4

ISO 6,400

I have a large collection of ADAPT photos, here are a few:

2016 ADAPT in Salt Lake City: https://flic.kr/s/aHskmDABpo

2018 ADAPT in Denver: https://www.flickr.com/gp/timmwheat/9bK82z

2020 ADAPT Winter Strategy Meeting: https://www.flickr.com/gp/timmwheat/hZEL2a

General ADAPT: https://www.flickr.com/gp/timmwheat/87K36B

ADAPT Activist before being arrested at the White House 2016.

ADAPT activist just before getting arrested at the White House.

Photo by Tim Wheat.

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