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The (Un)Official Occupy Wall Street Photographer's 15 Favorite Frames
Shankbone headshot courtesy of Billy Name
David Shankbone has been photographing the Occupy Wall Street protests since organizers began planning in Tompkins Square Park. Since then, he's documented hundreds of the people and events that are making the Occupy movement what it is and what i
Date: September 3
This is the OWS planning session in Tompkins Square Park, which is in my neighborhood. The camera phone quality is low, but as far as I know, there are no other public images of a defining pre-o
Date: September 17
This was taken on the very first day of OWS. It's the Wall Street bull sculpture barricaded, guarded by a cop who looks like a character out of a Dick Tracy comic. This sculpture and Wall Street itself re
Date: September 23
I read somewhere that this is one of the most famous signs to come out of OWS, and I believe I was the first to photograph and publish it. It was taken just two days after
Date: September 24
Ginia Bellafante’s infamous New York Times story from the day before I too
Date: September 24
The initial days of OWS were full of college kids, hippies, and hardcore activists—the sorts of people the public doesn't take seriously. It was on day eight when I started to see evidence that OWS
Date: September 25
The OWS library appeared on day nine, and it has grown to be a relatively impressive collection with its own blog. "The People's Library," as
Date: September 28
This is my most well-known OWS photograph: the Goethe Girl. She is all over the internet because she strikes a chord with straight guys and she flies in the face of how the protesters were initially portrayed
Date: September 30
It is hard to fully capture the "human microphone," for which protesters shout in unison to amplify me
Date: September 30
This was the large march to police headquarters to protest the pepper-spraying of female demonstrators the week before, and it’s my favorite shot of the NYPD interacting with the crowd. It really exudes
Date: September 30
One of the now-infamous drum circles. I was sitting right at the foot of these guys o
Date: October 5
I was walking through City Hall Park on the day of the first big union march when I ran into Victoria Jackson, the 1980s Saturday Night Live cast member turned evangelical Tea Partier. She was filming <
Date: October 6
This guy is arguably the face of OWS. His photo is everywhere. He even made the cover of The Economist! He was there for about a week, and every time I saw him he was wearing this hapless
Date: October 6
Naomi Klein was the first big name to embrace OWS to a degree that she went down to Zuccotti to officially address the crowd. I photographed Klein at the Brooklyn Book Festival in 2010, but she had put on so muc
Date: October 16
This is just too adorable for words, and, in my opinion, the best photo on the Awwcupy Wall Street blog. Everyone from Andrew Sullivan to Forbes
Date: October 25
So much has been written about how many attractive people you see at Occupy protests. At first it was fun, but then it became a meme and I got tired of it. At this point the movement is so widespread you s
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