Archive for July, 2011

Fight Party

I recently photographed a fight party at the East Bay Rats Motorcycle Club in Oakland. There were probably a few hundred people in attendance, and any two people in the crowd could volunteer to fight in the ring. Fights continued until one of the fighters was knocked out, or gave up. Usually it was friends who would want to box each other, though there were a few matches between strangers. Most of the people boxing had no training, and many were also drunk. Incidentally, not one waiver was signed the entire night.

There was a moment in every fight where you could see the people fighting go from buddies to mortal enemies. It happens in an instant, someone gets punched in the face for the first time and something changes as the pain registers. You can see it in their eyes as they go from just wanting to win the match to really wanting to inflict pain. When the match ends, the same thing happens in reverse. All the hostility goes away, they hug it out and they’re friends again.

Shark Fins

A tiger shark at the California Academy of Sciences.

I took these pictures for a story about the political fight over “shark finning” back in March. A law banning the sale and importation of shark fins in California passed the state assembly in May and if it gets through the state senate shark fins will be illegal in California starting in 2013.

There are reasonable sounding arguments on both sides of this issue, but all the experts are saying we need to stop killing so many sharks or it’s going to really mess up our oceans. I think most people would be willing to give up their favorite soup (no matter how culturally significant or delicious it is) if that soup was causing an environmental catastrophe, right? You can sign an online petition here if you support the ban.