 By Daniel BrownI took this photo on May 25th, 2019, at Place de la République in Paris, France during one of the Yellow Vest demonstrations. France has a long history of political demonstrations, which have often been about money or food or both. The Yellow Vest movement, which began in 2018 and ended in 2020, was largely about money. The image shows numerous people running from tear gas fired by riot police, and the Marianne statue in the background covered in the chemical agent. Less than 10 seconds after I took the shot, the gas became so intense that I couldn't see the statue or anything else more than a foot or two in front of me. My eyes teared up and stung badly as did my nose and throat and I turned and ran — bent over coughing so violently that I almost threw up — away from the statue down Boulevard Voltaire. But the gas seemed to follow me, and I didn't have a mask that day. I was in extreme pain but also kind of woozy. At some point, I couldn't run any further, nor could I really see or breathe. In this semiconscious state, I noticed a little glass nook with a doorway to a building, which later turned out to be a brasserie. I stumbled towards the nook, still bent over coughing, and collapsed on the ground. My memory gets increasingly fuzzier from here, but I remember being curled up in a ball in the doorway near some stranger. I couldn't open my eyes and I was making some sort of groaning noise while trying to breathe. Suddenly, I heard my Dutch friend and photographer, Olaf, call out from somewhere. He had photographed the Yellow Vest protests since the beginning, and had actually been shot in the leg with a non-lethal projectile by riot police several months beforehand. His wound was not pretty. "Dan!" he repeatedly yelled out in an American sounding accent. I tried to respond but was barely conscious, and I couldn't do more than make guttural noises. Olaf grabbed me and squirted some sort of solution in my eyes. I don't remember what he used, but I remember immediately popping up and the pain subsiding. The gas was by then gone, and I could see and breathe again. I thanked him mightily and blew my noise and went back to work. Support my work and the Photo Log by becoming a member of my Patreon page here.
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