Lori Hawkins has covered the inauguration before. Whether or not to wear a flak jacket was not something those occasions required her to consider.
The photographer and Bridgehampton resident decided "if bullets are flying that's not where I want to be," but still, she strapped a skateboarding helmet to her backpack on Jan. 20.
Back on Jan. 5, Ms. Hawkins canceled a trip she was supposed to take to the Capitol the next day, deciding she had already assumed enough risk documenting events in the pandemic. As a photojournalist, she regrets the decision.
The fallout of Jan. 6 had her photography cohort on high alert, she said. "There was a lot of chatter about additional attacks in all 50 state capitols, so with that chatter came a photographers' meeting about what to expect."
In the run-up to the inauguration, Ms. Hawkins also took an online class on how to safely cover riots and civil unrest, taught by Judith Matloff at the Dart Center.
Dressing for unrest was another thing to consider. Ms. Hawkins, who has in the past worn Trump regalia to blend ("as much as it's possible with two cameras around my neck"), and to avoid screaming people, "spit coming out of their mouths, calling me the devil."
"That happened by the way," she said. The online class advised against wearing black specifically after a journalist dressed in all black on Jan. 6 was thrown over a barrier by Trump supporters who believed he was antifa, said Ms. Hawkins.
Her journal notes from the inauguration captured a more muted atmosphere. "I arrived five days early to get the lay of the land," she wrote. "The only people in the streets were a few vendors and a lot of journalists."
Even with the knowledge that it would be the smallest inauguration ever, she had still been expecting hundreds of spectators.
Ms. Hawkins noted an impressive ratio of police to Washingtonians. "There were a few locals running, biking, and just out walking their dog. They were often stopped short of their normal route due to the black fencing that was erected."
Fencing around the Capitol building and the presence of hundreds of National Guard troops that increased to 25,000 by Jan. 20, starkly positioned inaugural tradition in the day's unprecedented context.
"Near B.L.M. plaza, at a bus stop, a sign displayed faces of people wanted for 'assault on federal officers at the U.S. Capitol seen on January 6, 2021,' " Ms. Hawkins recorded.
"I left D.C. and went to Richmond on Monday, January 18, 2021, for the day," she continued in her journal. "Gun rights activists rallied outside the Virginia Capitol. Members of the Proud Boys, Boogaloo Boys, the Black Panthers, and several Virginian militias congregated on the streets of the capitol."
"There were no dust-ups in Virginia," she said. "At one point, Proud Boys were trying to walk through the Black Panther group, but it stopped, and there were no fights."
Back in D.C., on Jan. 20, press waited in line, in vain, for hours, vying for the 25 spots along Pennsylvania Avenue that promised a prime photo-op of the inauguration parade.
"President Biden has already made his way to the White House, he's not passing by here," an officer said to Ms. Hawkins, who had been hemming and hawing over her angle from another vantage point.
Ms. Hawkins said that she chose to stay outside the fencing because the threat of violence still hung in the air. "Two areas were approved for protesters, one of which was pro-Trump, and looking at photos of people it seemed like there were 20 photographers per Trump supporter."
Somehow, she said, she kind of knew it would be that way, and was not interested in photographing that dimension of the inaugural proceedings.
Four years ago, in the right place at the right time, Ms. Hawkins got an unlikely photo of Donald Trump on the way to his inauguration.
This year, "I was listening to NPR and they announced that Trump would make his way to Marine One to depart D.C. for Mar-a-Lago. NPR was delayed by a few minutes. I looked up and there it was, Marine One with Trump leaving D.C. I quickly grabbed my camera and shot a few frames," she wrote.
A few blocks from the National Mall, Ms. Hawkins happened upon a television playing in the window of an empty restaurant.
"I stood there watching replays of the inauguration that I had missed. This was an inauguration that was meant to be watched virtually. At least I had this corner and TV to myself to watch history as it had unfolded behind a barricade of troops and fences. I felt this was an appropriate way to say goodbye to the last 4 years of a soap-operatic presidency," she jotted down.
