Same-Sex Marriage - Washington State

On November 6th, voters approved Referendum 74 legalizing same-sex marriage in Washington.

Voters took to the streets in the Seattle neighborhood of Capital Hill celebrating until 3 a.m.

The next month the law went into effect. Hundreds of couples began lining up outside of the King County Recorder's Office on December 5th, 2012 to get their marriage licenses. As the clock counted down to midnight the air was electric with excitement.  

Many of the couples had been together for decades, often already joined in civil union ceremonies, but soon they would finally be able to say they were legally married.

Under the new Washington law, the couples had to wait three days after obtaining a marriage licenses to have the ceremony. The first weddings took place at the King County Courthouse at 12:01 by Judge Mary Yu. The first couple to be married was Sarah and Emily Cofer, a couple that been together for over ten years and have a 9 month old daughter.

Judge Yu married couples throughout the night until 7:00 a.m. that morning. One of the cutest moments came from the wedding of Andrew Heidke and Anthony Delos. Andrew’s mother, Cathy Peck, far away in Milwaukee, Wisconsin watched the wedding via FaceTime wiping away tears during the ceremony.

The sweetest wedding was of Jenelle Forde and Jodi Hyde who had two dozen friends and family form a circle to toast the newly weds.

There was the marriage of Stephanie Lyon and Margaret Ryan, which took place at 3:00 a.m. so they could be married as soon as Margaret finished work for the night. The couple met seven years ago when Margaret saved Stephanie from a burning building.

The night turned into morning and more weddings began at City Hall at 10 a.m. This was a true media circus with hundreds of videographers, photographers, and reporters running around the building trying to cover five weddings happening at the same time.

The City Hall building has a very long staircase that leads down to the street. Supporters of the law, family members, and media lined the stair way handing couples flowers as they walked down, chanting “we love you,” and “kiss! kiss! kiss!­­” to the newlyweds. 

My wife planned to cook an early Thanksgiving dinner on Monday. She awoke ready to cook - already starting to make stuffing and fix her turkey as I read through my emails over coffee. There in the bunch was an email asking if I was interested in covering the November storm that was coming down outside. A record amount of rain was falling outside as I geared up to photograph the damage around West Seattle.

One of my stops was Nickelsville, a homelesscamp that was rapidly flooding. The camp can house over 100 people and is located on city owned land but lacks the permits to operate.  Walking up  to the gate, I just saw blue tarps and water. The rain was pouring along with whipping winds as I photograph J.S. trying to build a walkway to the camps, standing in his tennis shoes in knee-deep water.  He pauses for a minute taking off his shoe and dropping water out of it as he tries to remove debris. While most of the resident's tents are raised off of the ground, most weren't high enough to be saved from the flood.  Around 30 tents with all the resident’s personal belongings were soaked.

Coming home very cold and very wet. But I open the door and smell Thanksgiving inside and immediately feel so very thankful for what I have and where I am in life. 

Once the story reached the public, the community opened their hearts being very generous in helping the residents. With hours people were donating wood, clothing, blankets, food, and most important a pump to remove the water.  

I walked into Alaska Airlines Stadium  way too early. People were still
setting up the audio for the night’s game against Albany. It was great
to enjoy the almost silent stadium before the sounds of dribbling
balls and cheering fans took over.

I ended up using Hipstamatic John S Lens and film Kodot XGrizzled . One
of the reasons why was for the border that defines the image as one that
was shot with an application.

Looking at the photo data, it’s ranging in shutter speeds of 1/20-
1/60th. Would I ever shoot a basketball game with those shutter
speeds? No, I would use those speeds if I wanted to have motion blur.
The lens that the iPhone uses is a 4.3mm which is equivalent to a 35mm
lens on a DSRL.

There are two general areas that media are put during basketball
games, on the court opposite the cheerleaders or up
in the media seating areas in the stands. The ushers kept
trying to lead me back into these areas as I roamed about the
stadium. With mobile photography the only zoom you have is your feet,
you don’t have large focal length lens and can’t zoom so you have to
be physically close to your subject. I found that this problem was
more pronounced while shooting basketball with an iPhone. So I headed
down to the baseline.

During my last experience shooting with Hipstamatic at the UW Huskies
football game I focused on the crowds and ignored the game completely
as there was no real way of shooting a football game on an
iPhone. With basketball, the action is easier to predict and thus
easier to photograph. Now it became a waiting game hoping the action
would come close and the shutter would be fast enough to stop the
action on the court.

Sitting next to other photographers with their real cameras was an
interesting experience. Normally, I would be decked out with my gear
too, but this time I had only my press pass and my iPhone. I felt like
a goon. I wasn’t getting dirty looks, but there were a lot of puzzled
expressions.

A lot of photojournalist flat out hate mobile photography. Some
incorporate it into their work while others use it purely for personal
images. Sitting on that baseline I felt there is a lot of potential
for the medium to reach new audience.

I almost found it refreshing sitting next to other photographers with
their cameras shooting 14 framers per second. When using the Hipstamastic application, there
is a delay between the time you take the photo and how long it takes
to process. There is a special moment between waiting for the photo and
finding out if you captured what you hoped. One of those moments
happen when a UW player was knocked to the ground, making the ball
fly towards the other photographers. I had my phone flat against
the ground taking photos when the ball hit the AP staff photographer
next to me. I hoped that the photo would be in focus, and was very happy when I saw thatvery happy when I saw that
the photo in fact did come out.

As the clock ran down the Husky and Albany battled it out for the
game-winning basket. I was rushing around looking to find the best
moment I could as the buzzer sounded. Albany upset the University of
Washington 63-62.