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Last night, I so badly wished to share these images of Coloradans watching the first female presidential nominee from a major political party win our state. I wish the images of people who shared her compassion, and the joy they captured, could be the story I reported. Instead, I had to document the tears of our fear: the fear that now exists for people living in this country who are not white males.
I wish I could share the photo of the moment Hillary Clinton won Colorado.
I wish I share the smiling faces of Clinton’s volunteers.
Volunteers who after polls closed in the state were overcome with joy.
I wish this photo, which shows Mariel’s joy and Neema’s fears, could be used to show that the close race ended in the volunteers’ favor.
I wish I could be posting the images I couldn’t take. The images of people realizing we elected a woman that stands for the compassion and love that our president-elect is void of.
I wish I could post images that I never had the opportunity to take.
Instead, all I could document was the fear and depression.
Fear from people who fear their health care being ripped away.
Sadness of volunteers who knew they did everything they could.
My final assignment was to photograph the Trump supporters as their candidate inched closer to winning the presidency. I had hoped the content of these images would not be necessary.
When I photograph, I care; I care about the subject in frame and the lives I am documenting. Having photographed drug addiction, destitution, poverty and the effects of abuse, none of those images pulled at my heart more than capturing Clinton supporters whose futures are now in the hands of a Trump presidency.
Contact CU Independent Opinion Staff Writer and Photographer Jackson Barnett at jackson.barnett@colorado.edu.