Above: Entering polling place, Upper West Side, November 2, 2010, below: Occupy Wall Street, Zuccotti Park, October 6, 2011

The demonstrations I photographed crossed the political spectrum, and I came to think of them generally as a form of street theatre. The Occupy Wall Street demonstration I shot in Zuccotti Park on October 6, 2011 was a clown show with antic fringe types performing for the press and passers-by. The double-decker sightseeing buses going down Broadway to the Wall Street area drove close to the kerb so their customers could see; instead of being a threat to the republic, Occupy Wall Street had become a tourist attraction. It was wilfully uncivil.

Advocacy groups in America frequently organise walkathons, another form of demonstration, as a way to raise awareness and generate funds for their causes. The Gay Men’s Health Crisis staged its first Aids Walk in 1986; I photographed it on a rainy May 15 in 2011 as it made its way past my window.

Although the internet has radically altered the way in which we get intelligence of the goings-on in our community, the New York Daily News continues to publish. Founded almost 100 years ago, the tabloid is known for its punchy front-page headlines. Blow-ups of some of the most memorable of these dominate a long wall in the newsroom; it provided an historical backdrop to the journalists toiling at their computers when I photographed them on March 19 of last year.