In case you didn’t know, something pretty big happened in my town last weekend:
We won the Super Bowl.
This is Seattle’s first national men’s title in almost 40 years, and the excitement practically turned the air blue and green. The crowd at the victory parade was the largest in Seattle history, .7 million people, 100,000 more than the population of the city itself.
I wouldn’t consider myself to be a football person, but I am every inch a Seattle person. And so on Wednesday I skipped class for the first time in my life and rode the bus into Seattle with my best friend, camera in hand, to take part in this small piece of history.
There are things you notice through a photographers lens that you would never see any other way.
A split second glimpse through the arms of the crowd
The screen of someone with a better view than your own
A community coming together
But there is an element of that day which can only ben hinted at through photos, this is an element which was key to Seattle’s victory and has swept up everyone in its path.
It is known as the 12thMan
Seattle was built by lumberjacks and mountain men and is now populated by a generation of computer programmers, making it quite possibly one of the most introverted metropolises in the nation. And yet there was a different feel in the city on that day, a feeling of unity, of being a part of something greater. I saw people smiling at each other for no reason whatsoever, strangers packed into the back of a truck and helping to pull more in, photographers giving up prim spots to others waiting behind them. We were no longer isolated individuals in a sea of faces. This ragtag group of football players had united us into a new entity, an extra player on the team.
On that day I saw 700,000 people take on the collective identity of the 12th Man.
Kesia Lee 
