CRITICAL PHOTOJOURNALISM

Leah Millis is a staff photographer at Thomson Reuters, where she has covered a wide range of issues, including politics, international protest movements, immigration, climate change, mass shootings and the rise of domestic extremism in the United States. 

The interview was lightly edited for clarity and length.

There were a lot of people who were not following the news and were not aware that violence was going to happen that day. Those of us who had been covering the Stop the Steal movement (and other protests centered around political and social grievances) who had been monitoring the (right wing) channels and the chats, knew that this event was going to happen and that there was planned violence for that day. So, I was defining it as a news assignment and had everything ready to go for a horrific, violent event, like two tourniquets, full body armor, and a ballistic helmet.  

I have a protest kit, which involves a small backpack that can fit my helmet and my gas mask, then I keep extra first aid supplies in there as well. I carry a first aid kit on my belt, which is a butterfly pouch that opens and is stocked with a tourniquet, an Israeli bandage, chest seal, basic band-aids, Advil, ear plugs, my inhaler, some gauze, just stuff that I might need. I always have tear gas wipes in there, too. I use a Think Tank belt, so I also have a lens pouch on there. I actually used the same setup in Ukraine. It was really helpful, because I can just move the stuff around on the belt when I need it and if I need to jump into a car I can just pull it to the side. At protests I have that on my hip and then in my backpack I keep the bigger stuff like my helmet and gas mask in there because you really don't want to walk up to something with your helmet out or your gas mask out because that can escalate people.

On the Sixth, we had a colleague who was actually removed from the scene at gunpoint, and it’s possible that part of why that happened was they were being a good journalist— asking for people's names with their notebook, writing it down. And I think these guys found that behavior suspicious, so they literally took them and held them for a few hours nearby. 

It's important for people to realize that protests can start off one way and end a totally different way. So, in the beginning it's maybe totally fine for you to be chatting with people and getting names and talking to people. You just have to be paying attention to what's going on, pay attention to the energy. You can literally, in some situations, you can almost feel this electricity and the air when things are shifting. Nuance and situational awareness are the most important factors that are going to inform you about how you should be behaving.