The week leading up to the inauguration of now President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris was a notably tense one. Two weeks before, angry Trump supporters had stormed the nation’s capital. As state and federal governments planned for a celebration on the National Mall, they also had to worry about the possibility of violent insurrection.
When photographer Daniel Arnold went to Washington, D.C., before the inauguration, though, he wasn’t looking for major-news moments; instead, he had his eye out for shots that would speak to the complex state of life for D.C.’s actual residents. What he found was a motley assortment of protestors, celebrators, pot stirrers, peacekeepers, uniformed soldiers, and ordinary people ushering in a new dawn in their home city. Below, see the photographs he took during an Inauguration Day spent on the streets of D.C.
