Yesterday, Claire, Eli and I went down to the West Hollywood courthouse to shoot portraits of same sex couples signing up for marriage licenses for NPR and it was a media frenzy like I’ve never seen before. Since we aren’t newspaper photographers or paparazzi we’ve never really dealt with the madhouse that is event photography. Literally everywhere you looked there were flashes popping. Luckily, we weren’t really covering the event but rather shooting portraits of people so we didn’t have to deal with the pushing and shoving and jockeying for position that the other picture takers had to deal with. It’s a madhouse I tell ya. It was pretty emotional getting to see some couples who have been together for 30+ years finally be able to call their significant other a wife or husband and everyone had a great story about why they decided to brave the long wait to get hitched the first day it became legal knowing their wedding would be crazy. Why is same sex marriage even an issue? And who are these people who are so against it? Here are some photos of people that got married yesterday on NPR’s website. Click the photo gallery.