Gayle Hafner

27 Gayle Hafner

Gayle was one of my favorite people and a fantastic activist. The thing I respected most was her taking on the role of teaching non-violence training at each ADAPT Action. She was an attorney who helped hundreds of activists use the power of non-violence at ADAPT actions.

Gayle was a passionate activist that you can see in her face. The photo does not show her eyes however, because she has on a pair of reflective sunglasses. That is me you can see in the reflection, so the photo is also a kind of self portrait.

Gayle Hafner [prisoner number 14]: "I am willing to do whatever it takes. I want to change the bankrupt, immoral long-term care system." -March 23, 2004; ADAPT Takeover of the Senate Finance Committee

You can't tell from the background, but this photo was made at the Rayburn House office building. ADAPT often would spread out on the Hill and use the various accessible entrances to get hundreds of activists in the office complex. It was really a beautiful day and we all could lounge out in the sun while the line of people made their way through the security check-point.

You can see me in the reflection of Gayle's sunglasses. I am wearing my distinct hat that I retired in 2009. The hat is another story.

In the reflection you may see that I am shooting from the hip, looking down at the viewfinder like you would hold a Rolleiflex or Hasselblad. That is a great feature of the SONY R1 and I used that feature a lot taking photos of activists that feels more relaxed than having a big lens pointed at you.

You can also see that I am kneeling, which was important for good candid photos of ADAPT activists, especially those using wheelchairs. I learned early on that standing looking down at subjects was not very effective. I do have years of photos that suffer from me standing. I guess about 2002 I had a change in how I took candid photos of people.

Also in the reflection you can see the columns of the Rayburn building outside the east entrance. I believe that behind me is a capitol police officer in a dark blue uniform. 

I know some people would closely crop this image to just Gayle's face. And I have sampled that for alternative displays. Here I am attempting to tell you some about my photography and two things are important to this style of crop. 

First is that my role with ADAPT was a documentarian. I took this photo and before the end of the day it was on the website. This was before most instantaneous social media and I wrote the daily ADAPT Action report to be our first draft of history. Also the report that I wrote and photos would provide materials to other journalists and media about the action.

I was really proud that I could include ADAPT members who did not get to travel to the action in feeling like they were at the event and show photos of people they knew and a summary of the action.

The second thing about this crop that I feel is more about my photography is that I generally show the fragments in the border, foreground and background. I do attempt to put out-of-focus elements in the foreground of photos. I believe that is is more in keeping with natural sight when I am attempting to highlight some other feature. In this case it is Gayle's face.

The people that are close in-front and behind Gayle are not the subjects of the photo, but there are fragments because part of the story is not just Gayle, but hundreds of activists at the Rayburn building. In the background, you may be able to guess at the location, I know where the photo was made, but again, it is not the subject. But it is easy to tell that it is a building in the background, and that there are people closely in front and behind Gayle.

I made this photo with my SONY R1, the zoom lens was at 120mm.

Best of ADAPT: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmLM8uPW 

ADAPT Action San Francisco October 24, 2001: http://www.knowonk.com/aar/lh/wedding.htm 

Gayle on the 2013 Free Our People March