{"id":201475,"date":"2017-06-16T13:23:18","date_gmt":"2017-06-16T20:23:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/?p=201475"},"modified":"2026-02-12T17:22:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T01:22:17","slug":"dvp-interview-tom-olin-and-marilyn-golden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/2017\/06\/16\/dvp-interview-tom-olin-and-marilyn-golden\/","title":{"rendered":"DVP Interview: Tom Olin and Marilyn Golden"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">Marilyn Golden interviewed Tom Olin for the Disability Visibility Project\u2122 at StoryCorps San Francisco on November 19th, 2014. In this clip, Tom talks about his work as a photographer at disability rights protests and actions. He also talks about the power of representation, and the kind of impact he hopes to have with his photography.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"embed-soundcloud\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1360\" height=\"400\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?visual=true&#038;url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F328454575&#038;show_artwork=true&#038;maxwidth=1360&#038;maxheight=1000\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<h3>Text Transcript:<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\"><strong>Marilyn Golden<\/strong>: So, let\u2019s talk about your history in the disability rights movement. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">[Music starts]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\"><strong>Marilyn Golden<\/strong>: You have been considered a &#8211; if not the &#8211; key photographer and photo journalist of our movement. When did you first connect with taking photos of disability rights related situations?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\"><strong>Tom Olin<\/strong>: If I can get a photo into the weekly reader that tells a kid that you know, these people are strong. You know? \u00a0These are not people that should be pitied. If I can do that, I feel like I\u2019m successful. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">[Protest Ambient Sound: ADAPT: We want a statement that they support nurse delegation -or assign an exemption, so that we can have control over our bodies, our lives, and live in the community.] <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">[Protest: Chant: People are dying shame on you!]<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\"><strong>Tom Olin<\/strong>: And the thing I want to take away with is not the action itself that I photograph, but the people that are in the action.What I enjoy about an action is the empowerment of the person. If I can get the empowerment of the person with that, with what they&#8217;re trying to say, then whatever that picture is used for will say it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">[Protest Ambient Sound]<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">[Music fades out]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\"><strong>Marilyn Golden<\/strong>: So, If I ask you how you compose a photo you would say it composes itself?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\"><strong>Tom Olin<\/strong>: Yes. Yes. Yeah, I would really be hard to say how I compose it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\"><strong>Marilyn Golden<\/strong>: So my question is, in the moment of snapping a photo, what is going through your mind?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\"><strong>Tom Olin<\/strong>: If I&#8217;m altogether, it&#8217;s all automatic. I actually don&#8217;t know what&#8217;s going through my mind. Sometimes it&#8217;s a chess board and I have to be at the right place at the right time. And I try to do that without people really noticing me. Not only because I don&#8217;t want people to be looking at the camera but it\u2019s also, their event, and I want to be more of a fly on the wall than someone popping up in the middle. So, [laughter] The secret service didn&#8217;t like it, but I would crawl underneath the tables of events and stuff like that just to get a good shot and things.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">[Music fades out]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">[Protest Ambient Sound]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\"><strong>Tom Olin<\/strong>: We were as strong and as mighty if sometimes not even more. I mean, you know, it was improtant to capture in our movement, to capture people in a way that was important for us. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">I mean, how many times have you been padded on your head, you know, and still being trying to be saved so you can walk? It just is way, way beyond. And you have to break that down. And I enjoy doing that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">[Protest: Everyone deserves a roof over their head, and live independently. As they see independence. They have the right\u2026]<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">Music Credit:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">Lobo Loco: Cultural Exchanges (<\/span><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">Cultural Exchanges (ID 484) by <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/freemusicarchive.org\/music\/Lobo_Loco\/\"><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">Lobo Loco<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight:400;\"> is licensed under a <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/4.0\/\"><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">Lobo Loco: Swining Sofas (<\/span><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">Swining Sofas by <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/freemusicarchive.org\/music\/Lobo_Loco\/\"><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">Lobo Loco<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight:400;\"> is licensed under a <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/4.0\/\"><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">Source: Freemusicarchive.org<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align:center;\"><b>Support Disability Media and Culture <\/b><\/h2>\n<h2 style=\"text-align:center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/donate\/\"><b>DONATE<\/b><\/a><b> to the Disability Visibility Project\u2122!<\/b><\/h2>\n<h3><b>Suggested Reference<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">Disability Visibility Project\u2122. (2014, November 19). DVP Interview: Tom Olin and Marilyn Golden. Retrieved from:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/wp.me\/p4H7t1-QpB\">http:\/\/wp.me\/p4H7t1-QpB<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Image Description<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\"> A photo featuring Tom Olin and Marilyn Golden taken on November 19th, 2014. They are both looking at the camera and smiling. The person on the left is Tom Olin. He appears to be white, and is wearing a black jacket and a black t-shirt. He has dark hair combed to the side and is wearing glasses. The person on the right is Marilyn Golden. She appears to be white, and is wearing a light green shirt. She has long brown hair and glasses. <\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Credits<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">Produced for the Disability Visibility Project\u2122 by Geraldine Ah-Sue and Alice Wong with interviews recorded by StoryCorps, a national nonprofit whose mission is to provide Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the story of our lives. For more: <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.storycorps.org\"><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">www.storycorps.org<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight:400;\"> and <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.disabilityvisibilityproject.com\"><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">www.disabilityvisibilityproject.com<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">For any questions, please refer to the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/about\/terms-of-useprivacy\/\"><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">Terms of Use<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight:400;\">. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Marilyn Golden interviewed Tom Olin for the Disability Visibility Project\u2122 at StoryCorps San Francisco on November 19th, 2014. In this clip, Tom talks about his work as a photographer at &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/2017\/06\/16\/dvp-interview-tom-olin-and-marilyn-golden\/\" class=\"read-more\">Continue Reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">DVP Interview: Tom Olin and Marilyn Golden<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":202113,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[548705951],"tags":[1030,2005041,2185238,50623202,168607,436,4908,93139,160500],"class_list":["post-201475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dvp-interviews","tag-action","tag-disability-culture","tag-disability-history","tag-disability-in-media","tag-disability-rights","tag-photography","tag-power","tag-protest","tag-representation","post-has-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/sfb003001_g1.jpg?fit=5184%2C3456&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4H7t1-QpB","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}