Some people arrive at protests without a sign, without a prepared chant, and without any plans to march in the front row. As the crowd moves around them, they reposition themselves every few seconds while standing slightly to the side with their eyes fixed on a viewfinder. It’s simple to wonder what precisely they believe they are doing. Keeping records? Taking part? Something more difficult to identify?
Even seasoned observers were taken aback by the sheer number of people who showed up at the “No Kings” protests that swept through American cities last spring. Not photojournalists in the press pool with credentials dangling from their necks—that profession has been steadily eroding for years, with cuts made at almost all major outlets with little fanfare. These individuals showed up because they felt compelled to, and they had fast lenses, mid-range mirrorless bodies, and personal cameras. It’s important to take a moment to consider this distinction.
One could legitimately argue that taking pictures during a protest is an act of witnessing—the journalistic urge to document what happened here on this particular day. That argument has been valid for decades and is clean and respectable. However, it feels lacking in some way due to the current political environment. The camera at protests is a “double-edged sword,” according to a 2026 study by researcher Clara Beccaro that was published in Current Anthropology. It is essential for bearing witness, but it also carries real risks, such as the potential for documentation to turn into surveillance and the potential for the lens to capture both the powerful and the vulnerable without distinction.
There is actual tension. However, it doesn’t explain why regular people, not media-trained journalists or activists, are showing up with professional equipment to take pictures of what’s happening in their cities. Perhaps a more straightforward and bizarre explanation is that the camera has evolved into a means of expressing a viewpoint without explicitly stating it.
Journalists have a long history of demanding objectivity, which is the notion that the reporter or photographer is an impartial observer of events and stands apart from what they cover. That was always a bit of a fantasy. Journalism professor Wasim Ahmad, who covered the “No Kings” demonstration in New Haven, observed that when neutrality itself begins to read as a position, pretending to be objective becomes more difficult.
He cited the 2020 Philadelphia Inquirer journalist sick-out, in which reporters staged a walkout in protest of a headline they believed to be immoral. The journalists wrote that they were “tired of being told to show both sides of issues, there are no two sides to.” This isn’t a breakdown of neutrality; rather, it’s people labeling something that was already flawed.
Resistance photography thus occupies an intriguing space. It is not the same as carrying a placard or signing a petition. In some ways, it’s safer because the camera maintains a professional distance even when the person behind it isn’t one. Additionally, it gives access; a person with a camera moves through a crowd in a different way than a person without one. However, it is also not insignificant. Belief influences decisions like whether or not to be present, whether to record, and whether or not to capture certain moments. It’s difficult to ignore that.
What all of this documentation really yields is the bigger question, the one that photography cannot answer on its own. Pictures from the 2014 Million March in New York went viral and are still used to depict that historical event. It’s a different story entirely if they made any changes outside of the archive. What’s being captured now is subject to the same uncertainty. Nevertheless, the photographers continue to appear, and perhaps this is a sort of solution in and of itself.
FAQs
1. Why are more non-journalists showing up to protests with professional cameras?
They’re using photography as a way to take a side without openly declaring one.
2. What risk does protest photography carry beyond simple documentation?
The lens can expose vulnerable protesters to surveillance as easily as it exposes power.
3. Did journalists always maintain true neutrality when covering protests?
No — the idea of a completely neutral observer was always somewhat fictional.
4. What did the Philadelphia Inquirer journalists mean by “no two sides”?
Some moral situations don’t offer a legitimate opposing position worth platforming.
5. Does protest photography actually change anything beyond creating a historical record?
That remains genuinely unclear, even after decades of powerful protest images.
