First Dishes of the Revolution -- Occupy Portland

"Occupy Interviews 1"
Produced/edited by: Gabe Beasley
Interview questions asked by: Alina Beasley
WARNING! This movie has been rated by me as "PG" due to some mild language content.
First Interviews taken at Occupy Portland.  Here and see what a few people at the Occupy movement had to say in there own words, why they are there, and what they think of it.   I am just learning movie making so bare with me as I learn and perfect my technique and use the video abilities of my camera.  I have A LOT more to add, these videos take HOURS to upload and photos take hours to process for this site.  If I interviewed you you will be on this or one of the next movies on this site and my YouTube site "Mostlymacros". 

"FIRST DISHES OF THE REVOLUTION"
An on site documentary by Gabe Beasley
THIS is a PEACEFUL MOVIE showing the atmosphere and attitude one usually would have experienced.  I made this video to show what it might be like to take a walk through the Occupy camp during this time.  I did not know anyone down there yet and was met by a peaceful and awesome people.  I want to show this side of things in contrast to the constant media and YouTube buzz of videos with bad language, brawls and other sensationalism that is posted too often.  That JUNK misses the point!  Most of it was and is a peaceful protest and usually people were NOT yelling at each other.  This was and is a very peaceful movement with important and serious messages.   I am not only impressed by most of the serious Occupy movement but ALSO by the Portland Police who showed far more respect for free speech here in Portland then was shown in many other cities around the world.

IMPORTANT ART NOTE:
Some art in this movie was done by unknown artists, signs, and beginning sign) If you do know who did the sign at the beginning of this movie PLEASE email me as I want to give them credit for there art which made the opening screen of my first documentary possible).

OCCUPY PORTLAND -- RECENT EVENTS -- MOSTLY MACROS
I Really enjoyed and agreed with most of the stuff I saw at Occupy Portland and my wife and I can be seen in this video as we got involved in the protest.  When I was not taking pictures I was protesting as well.  I really think it's time that corrupt people are shown what they have done and big changes are made in the way our government and the super-wealthy do things.  We all deserve a chance and fact is we don't all have one.  There are just too many unfair situations going on.  Not only to human beings and not only in the USA.  All over the world, injustices need to be heard and not simply ignored as another 'phase' to be put down.  Because it WILL NOT go away.

"Golden Bee" 2006
I took this shot with my Kodak DX7630 back when I got going in digital.  It was actually shot with a compact camera to which I had added a homemade closeup lens and a flash reflector to make shots like this possible without a hot-shoe for an external flash.

MOSTLY MACROS will be changing but for the better--some things will not--I am just adding more "Independent lens" Journalistic content.
I have often pledged to not talk about politics in Mostly Macros but for this I have made an exception because I feel there are important issues that need to be shown.  As an totally independent jornalistic photographer I want to show the facts as much as I possibly can since the mainstream news media so often fails at this.  At Occupy Portland I took 1000s of still pictures, night and day, dozens of videos, and several interviews my wife really helped me with.  In time, many will be posted here and or on Flicker and YouTube but I want to start here as this is my main site.  Sorry about the delay if I interviewed you and you don't see it yet.  Because of budget problems I am using a very small and slow Netbook (Intel Atom 1Ghz processor--equiv. to about a 2003 computer) to process my pics and even compile some videos.   It took me over 4 hours to make the 12min movie "First Dishes of the Revolution" and another 3 or so to upload it to my YouTube channel.   This is my first YouTube video and I plan to make more but until I can get a regular laptop with Win7 and more then 1GB of RAM it will take time.  I hope that eventually I will be able to afford a full laptop/notebook that has enough memory and a fast enough processor (about $500 cost) to work with video files and my huge RAW files which are often larger then 20mb with my Nikon D7000.  I am a true struggling artist and trying to save but I have to take into account other costs (life) and have not yet been able to save up enough for a computer that can handle my needs.  Even though a pretty basic laptop would do it.  We are still recovering from our house burning down in 2009.   I am hoping that eventually my photographic and artistic works will be more recognized and I want to go into documentary film making.  As for Political opinions go, that's not really what Mostly Macros will ever be about.  I may say my opinion on some issues--but generally I am here to show what I photograph--the facts and report.  Some people may say things which I do not agree with in videos--but that does not mean I will not show the interview.  I want to report on the issues I take interest in and photograph them.  I also want to do artistic/photographic projects and even get into documentary film making.  It is not my intent to make another political blog or news and views site.

There are many opinions in the world and many at Occupy--I do not agree with everything everyone is saying--but it is time for corruption to end and the poor should not pay for it.  I know this is not a simple issue.  The spider/nature and artistic shots are NOT over!  I will be doing a number of articles about spiders and other pictures as time goes on.  I am just announcing here that I plan to open Mostly Macros up a bit to some political situations, declare it to also be a jornalistic blog.  I have a lot of work to do on it, but given time I think this will be a good looking blog.  I will continue to try to keep Mostly Macros as G-RATED as possible.  If there is content in videos or articles that I think will be a problem (such as bad language in an interview) I will post serious warnings before and under the video.  I have still not decided if I will post such videos in this site as I want kids and schools to be able to continue to use it for information and projects on insects and spiders.  Once I get a laptop that will let me edit videos I will be able to bleep out bad language in them.  If a video does have such language there will be plenty of warning and NO VIDEOS on this site will have other types of questionable content.  If you read this please leave a comment about content issues, your opinion matters!

Incredibly this small Intel Atom powered Netbook was able to cut my movie down from 720p HD which was HUGE to a smaller and more manageable 480p video.   It was shot originally in wide screen HD but had to be cut to 4:3 in order to bring it down in size so that I could work with it on this computer (I can't watch even 720p HD on this computer direct from camera).   This video took 4+ hours to process with this computer and it will take similar amounts of time to get other videos ready that I made at Occupy Portland.   Give it time--and they will be up there.  Thank you for checking out my site and don't forget there are lots of pictures on this site!  If you want to link or have any questions please email.   I will try to respond to comments in time.   --G.Beasley

OCCUPY PORTLAND -- Pictures SET 1

I have over 1,700 pictures from Occupied Portland Oregon that I took during 2 days and part of the night there.  In my opinion it was a great event and these 'Occupations' are bringing out serious and solid social issues that MUST be changed sometime in the future.  Being here was both an awesome experience photographically and in hope for our country and world's future.  I don't believe in all these ideas, but many of them I do.  I am breaking my long-held non-political stand on Mostly Macros.   HOWEVER This does NOT mean I am no longer going to show you the spider pictures and articles I do or other nature shots I will continue to publish.  While this is going however--my lenses are on Occupied Portland as the mainstream News media seems to want to act as if it means nothing and does not exist.

Not changing them and not listening to the people will eventually not become an option.  America and indeed the world, may well be at a crossroads.  This to me even though I was not born yet in the 1960s, is the greatest protest for civil-rights and liberties, justice, and accountability as well as the fight against greed since that time.  I have a set of mostly SIGN pictures that I WILL release soon.   This set 2 of pictures will have most of the expressed political views and artistic signs made by the protestors during Occupation Portland while I was photographing it.

NOTES:  I DO NOT NECESSARILY AGREE WITH ALL SIGNS OR STATEMENTS MADE HERE!  I will add text later if I am interested in a specific thing to agree with.  Otherwise consider this simply what I viewed through my lens.  Journalism as I think it should be done showing whatever I see--not just tiny snippets of what I want to see.  Opinions were often common but a very wide number of views and issues are being represented by the Occupy movement in general throughout the world.  I hope it is a peaceful revolution that will enact some serious change and spark some well doing in a now obviously desperate nation and world.  Inequality and oppression cannot remain in place forever, such things cannot be ignored.


(2) IF you wish to have your photo removed please email me--(email on sidebar of this blog) IF you wanted to be on my blog and have not seen your shot yet--PLEASE WAIT--I have lots of pictures and work to get these up.

THE BEST PICS I GOT ARE YET POSTED HERE!
MORE WILL BE UP SOON--LOTS OF WORK SO JUST GIVE ME TIME!

(3) I HAVE MANY MORE PICS TO POST!  This is only the first installment.  I have the protest march, and many other events and activities I think should be shown.  These are NOT the best pictures or the pictures I picked.  They were just the first ones to fall on the top of my JPEG pile of over 1700 shots from that day.  There is far more to see and come about OCCUPY PORTLAND.

(4) To view full size of any image double click on image. USE BACK ARROW on your internet explorer (such as Firefox) to get back to my site.

Here is my wife, doing a really great thing on the protest walk October 15th.  She really helped me by watching my camera gear while I took shots and did the full protest walk.  She's the best wife in the world for understanding my ideas and photographic life. 

 This is a married couple who were just married yesterday, hailed as "the first married couple of Occupied Portland".  I promised I'd post there picture on my site.  (Contact me if you see it and I will add your names--email me your names! :)

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 Normal pictures.  Even at a high ISO, taking shots in near-darkness is not easy.  So I got out my tripod and went for night-shots turning night--into day. 

 This shot was taken just a few seconds after the above black dark shot showing how dark it was in camera terms.  With long exposures, you can get incredibly detailed shots of anything that stays still.  However, if people move in the picture--the movement can be seen in an interesting and artistic ghost like way.  Night-shots can be better then day-time shots.  So I have a number of them more I plan to take and post of Occupied Portland.