Category: Political Issues

9/11 is one of those events that everyone is supposed to be able to remember what they were doing when it happened. For what it’s worth I was unlocking my bike and preparing to cycle home after a teaching session when a colleague who had lived in New York rushed up to me in some distress and told me what she had just seen on her computer, and I cycled home and switched mine on to find out more about what she had been telling me. It really didn’t look real, though it clearly was (and no, I don’t believe the conspiracy theorists.) Soon I was searching the web for photographs and writing about the photographic coverage of the event, publishing a piece that I think got a normal month’s hits – around a million – in a day.

It wasn’t just the start of the a new era of terrorist threats – and of a US ‘War Against Terror’ with disastrous consequences for Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere – but also marked a watershed for photography, or at least news photography. For although there were plenty of pictures by professionals – at times I think almost every other person in New York is a photographer – but the images that truly brought home the horror and the drama of the situation were those taken by people on their phones on their way down the stairs of the towers, or running through the lobbies. There were pictures too of generally tiny dots in mid-air, those who chose to jump to their death rather than wait to be burnt, though I’m not sure I linked to any of those. September 11, 2001 was perhaps the start of ‘citizen journalism’, or at least the first truly major event which it recorded.

Terrible though the events of September 11, 2001 were, in some ways those of 11 September 1973 were worse. The CIA backed coup in Chile brought into power a brutal regime under Pinochet, and although deaths in the actual coup were relatively low,  thousands were killed in the in the first months of the military government, and the disappearances and deaths continued, with final estimates of the dead varying between 4,000  and 30,000.

Both events were mentioned in the speeches at the Stop the War protest outside the US Embassy on the day of the anniversary, but the protest was about stopping the US from engaging in military involvement over Syria. It was a relatively small protest, in part because of the poor weather, but also because events had moved and Obama had already drawn back from the threat of imminent attack. Had it not been 9/11 I suspect Stop the War might have cancelled the protest, but I think the anniversary seemed too good an opportunity to miss.

My main problems were the weather and the light. It had got pretty dark by the time I arrived, feeling as if it was around a couple of hour later in the day with heavy cloud cover, and soon afterwards as the protest began, so did the rain.  Fortunately I’d taken some pictures of the US flag at half mast, as it soon looked rather bedraggled, which might be appropriate but doesn’t make for good pictures.

Soon I was taking pictures of people holding umbrellas, and having even more problems with the light. Black umbrellas create some pretty dim areas underneath them and there are problems too with coloured umbrellas.

There really was some very red light on the heads of these two women, and it gives them a rather odd appearance. I’ve actually cut it down a bit in this image, by adding a little of a complimentary hue locally in Lightroom, and I could have done more, but decided to keep most of the effect.

Possibly the umbrellas help in some of the pictures, and visually there was perhaps little of interest otherwise, but the rain isn’t good for taking pictures. Although as usual I kept wiping the drops from the lens filters, as usual some images were spoilt as new drops arrived between wipe and exposure.  I always carry a small folding umbrella in my camera bag, but seldom use it while I’m actually taking pictures. It’s hard to find the extra hand you need to hold it when you are taking pictures, and when you are working in a crowd – even a fairly loose one like at this protest – it just gets in the way when you try to move around, catching with other umbrellas. Even if I’d had an assistant to hold one, it would still have been a restriction.

So I got wet, though not quite as we as the people holding the banner. I’m not sure if the placard at the right has collapsed when wet or had been bent down to help shield the holder from the rain. Whichever way it had outlived its usefulness as a placard.

At least the organisers had a good reason to cut down on the speeches, which I wasn’t finding too illuminating, and we left the protest considerably earlier than I’d expected. I wasn’t sorry to get out of the rain and be on my way home.

More pictures at 9/11 Protest at US Embassy.

Continue reading 9/11 Anniversary

Kevin Carroll and Tommy Robinson in Bermondsey

I’m not sure how to take the news that both ‘Tommy Robinson’ and his sidekick Kevin Carroll have both defected from the EDL, though Tommy’s comment that he was tired of being associated with morons who advocate violence against Muslims was welcome if puzzling. It seemed to come from a very different man to the one I’d heard speaking to a right-wing crowd only a few weeks ago, a crowd which had been vociferously shouting anti-Muslim chants and trying to intimidate the people of Tower Hamlets.

It isn’t as if the EDL has changed. Key supporters have always included people with some rabid racist views, with plenty of former members of the BNP and National Front among them. Tommy and Kevin would have to have been marching blindfold and brain-dead not to have been fully aware of them. But it would be churlish not to welcome their conversion, however tardy it seems.

Unlike some on the left, I’ve never felt that every single person who marched with groups like the EDL or March For England was an irredeemable racist. Over the years I’ve had discussions with many of them, and  occasionally found some points of agreement as well often having to make clear my disagreements with openly racist views.

Many I think have simply been misled by the constant propaganda of newspapers and even ‘respectable’ media and political parties over migration and immigrants as well as other issues – as for example the continual use of terms such as ‘illegal immigrants’ and ‘benefit scroungers’ . Some of the things they feel strongly about are legitimate, but too often they have been persuaded to blame other disadvantaged groups rather than the real causes and those who really aren’t in it with the rest of us, who manipulate our lives for their advantage.

But on September 9th, things were still as usual, with the EDL meeting in Bermondsey, ready to march across Tower Bridge and into Tower Hamlets. Bermondsey is I think where I first seriously photographed a racist march, and was perhaps an appropriate starting point, with a long history of racism among the poor white working class. The EDL seemed to be on their best behaviour, though the large number of police around undoubtedly made me feel rather safer as I walked, along with other photographers, into the centre of several hundred supporters, some of whom were happily playing up to the media, shouting slogans and making gestures to the cameras. It was a different atmosphere to that at some previous EDL events I’ve covered.

Once the march began to get ready to start, the atmosphere changed rather, with a little aggravation, particularly from some of the stewards, and the policing was also sometimes over the top. The police made it hard to photograph during the march, continually pushing photographers further and further in front of the marchers – at one point on the other side of Tower Bridge we were still being told to move back when we were a good 50 yards, if not a hundred in front of the marchers.

It did place us in a better position to rush towards a counter-protest which made itself known by throwing some rather ineffectual red smoke flares when the march was still perhaps 300 yards away. Police let us through without any checks to photograph the anti-fascists, but I made the mistake of trying to go around a different route back to the EDL protest, and missed the actual confrontation – around 50 yards apart – of the two groups. I’ve not seen any pictures of this and I think police probably prevented everyone getting close enough to take them.

The only good pictures I’ve seen taken on the actual march were by a colleague of mine, who decided to get inside the march before it started and stayed in there for some time. I did something similar with a National Front march in Bermondsey back in 2001, and like him, had some problems with arguing my way out through the police cordon when my presence inside became a little problematic.

Almost as the march reached its destination, I did manage to take a few pictures standing on a raised flowerbed a little to the side of the march. A couple of TV crews also took up position there, and this perhaps made the police decide not to clear us. I think many of the marchers welcomed seeing us there, giving them something to do on what had otherwise been a fairly uneventful march, though not all the gestures were friendly.

I took a few pictures as marchers arrived for the final rally, but it was difficult to find a good viewpoint, and after taking pictures of both Tommy and Kevin speaking decided to leave. There were an impressive number of police lines to get through between the EDL and, around a quarter of a mile down the road, the mass of people of Tower Hamlets who had come out determined to stop them. My press card got checked at least half a dozen times, but got me through.

Photographically most things were straightforward, though because of the policing I did occasionally find myself wishing for a 1000mm lens or perhaps a drone carrying my camera. It was one of those times when I sometimes regretted not having brought my monopod and cable release to lift up the camera so I could photograph over the heads of police, as a few photographers and videographers were doing. It would be a little extra weight, but apart from the lack of control over framing (which even a camera with tilting screen would not greatly improve) the main thing that stops me is not having a monopod that fits inside my camera bag when folded.  Perhaps I should do another search on what is available.

More pictures at EDL March Returns to Tower Hamlets.

Continue reading EDL March to Tower Hamlets

A woman in a wheelchair pegs up a pair of pants with a message for Ian Duncan Smith

I’d hoped that the protesters from DPAC were going to repeat their occupation of the Dept of Work and Pensions as I photographed them doing last August (DPAC Occupy Dept of Work & Pensions) but it wasn’t going to happen. The police were probably ready for it this time, with the lunchtime protests in four other Whitehall ministries it was perhaps fairly obvious that they might be considering a visit to the DWP afterwards, even though this had not been advertised.

DPAC do have a couple of advantages over other protesters so far as keeping their plans quiet are concerned. The police don’t I think have any disabled officers, which makes it harder for them to go ‘underground’ and become central to the movement as they have done in many other protest groups. And most police officers are unhappy about pushing and shoving people in wheelchairs in the way they treat able-bodied protesters, and pictures of riot police wielding their batons or tasering people in wheelchairs would be very bad publicity.   There is a notably different approach to their protests when they block roads or carry out other actions which might normally get a vigorous response.

Protesters spread across the pavement in front of the DWP
But by the time the more active members of DPAC arrived, others who had come earlier were already protesting outside the ministry, with police at its entrance preventing entry to the protesters. So the protest continued on the pavement outside, and even though it was effectively blocked by around 35 wheelchairs along with the other protesters, police made no attempt to keep a path clear.  Of course the road wasn’t a very busy one, and it was easy for pedestrians to cross to the other side, but that doesn’t usually stop police threatening protesters (and photographers) with arrest for ‘obstructing the pavement’. But there was non of that at this protest.

Citizen Smart singing

There were some excellent speeches from a number of people, mainly themselves disabled, some songs from Citizen Smart (Alan Smart) from Glasgow, including a hilarious English translation of his ‘You Canny Have a Spare Room in A Pokey Coouncil Flat’ (he makes a cheap CD available including the original version which he will sell at cut price to all bona fide Anti-Bedroom Tax groups in UK who can then sell it to make a profit for their funds) and some other appropriate songs.

Richard Reiser, co ordinator for UK Disability History Month speaks

The only low point for me was an performance by TV performer Heydon Prowse, a man who let the Evening Standard know that he “finds some of what David Cameron says appealing“, who closely follows right-wing blogger Guido Fawkes “and has a co-operative relationship with the Taxpayer’s Alliance“, a right-wing pressure group funded mainly by wealthy Conservatives and their businesses.

Heydon Prowse gives a pale imitation of the Rev Billy

Prowse has appeared at a number of protests, recording material for TV shows. Of course some of what he has produced is pretty funny, and it’s hard to fault things like his expose of Pay Day loans, but at times he seems to be taking the piss out of real protesters and laughing all the way to the bank. Protest for profit? But his performance here as the Rev Billy (complete with a three woman choir)  was a pretty pathetic attempt. If you want to put the Rev on TV insist on the real thing.

Complete the phrase for IDS, ‘Kiss…’
But fortunately things brightened up considerably after that, with pairs of pants being handed out to all who wanted to write a message on them for Ian Duncan Smith (who was caught out in 2003 claiming his underwear on parliamentary expenses.) The pants were then hung on a line between a couple of lamp posts on the street outside the DWP.

They did present a slight problem, in that few of the messages were fit to print!
Continue reading Pants to IDS

Two boys, I think brothers, at the protest.

I arrived late for Hands off Syria, a protest outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square, and more or less as I walked in the protest seemed likely to be disintegrating as a strong faction supporting the Syrian regime and President Assad began to erupt against a speaker who had begun to talk about the discrimination against the Kurds in Syria.

A number of protests in recent years by Stop the War have brought together groups with very different viewpoints. When they protested against our air attacks on Libya, there were both pro- and anti-Gadaffi groups who came, although then those against the dictator were mainly also in favour of the air attacks.

Here I think everyone was against military intervention by the West, but little else united the protesters. Taking place after the House of Commons vote had turned down any British intervention, the protesters were here to call on Obama not to attack.

I always like to show the US Eagle and flag when I’m at the embassy – and this is nicely not too obvious

Although I can’t feel much sympathy for those pro-Assad protesters – he’s a brutal dictator who should have been consigned to history long ago (and I suspect only kept in power by cynical Western support) and responsible for the massacre of many thousands of the Syrian people – they do provide some good images. And of course what they were saying about there being no discrimination against the Kurds in Syria, and the Syrian people being as one was total nonsense, as anyone who has done the slightest research would know. They must all read the Syrian equivalent of the Daily Mail and believe all its lies.

It’s hard to see any sensible policy towards Syria. Like most of the Middle East it isn’t really a country but an artificial construct that suited Western policy towards the area some time in the last century when the lines were drawn on maps.  We should have found ways to support democratic and progressive movements across the area  over the years, but instead chose to back some very reactionary monsters mainly on behalf of our oil companies. Which leaves us in the current mess.

A rather odd angle  was needed to include everything I wanted

But I was there to take pictures, not make political speeches, and I got on with it, stifling my disbelief at some of the speeches, particularly those that claimed that the recent vote was some kind of victory for the anti-war movement rather than arising from sheer stupidity by David Cameron in refusing to compromise with Labour.  If he’d done so the vote would have gone the other way – and what claims about success could have been made then?

The official Stop the War protest ended fairly soon after, and they started packing up, leaving most of the stage to the Syrians, who began a much more lively event.

There is something very odd about that image of Assad, somehow too smooth, too polished, too heavily retouched, something wrong with his eyes, and I do find the whole personality cult disturbing.

By this time the wind had dropped and the flag wasn’t playing the game, which was just a little disappointing.  This woman in particular was good to photograph, very demonstrative. There is often a problem with photographing a protest that people just stand there, doing nothing, saying nothing, but there was plenty of action at this one – as you can see at Hands off Syria.

Continue reading Syrian Unrest

At last all of my August events are on My London Diary – here is the list:

Counihans Celebrate Anniversary
Obama Don’t Attack Syria

It rained very hard in Thirsk, though fortunately not all the time we where there!
More Holiday Snaps
SDL and UAF in Edinburgh

Theatre not protest – and I didn’t go to see the show

Edinburgh & the Festival
Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday

Putin, ‘Hands Off Queers!’
Against Live Animal Exports
Also in Trafalgar Square
Frack Off

Hetty Bower, a remarkable woman born on October 3, 1905 spoke briefly at the event

Hiroshima Day
Stop MI6 Lies About Shaker Aamer

Westfield security tells me I’ve taken enough pictures. I couldn’t agree.

Cleaners in John Lewis Westfield
End Zero Hours Contracts – Sports Direct
Roma Genocide Commemorated

Al Quds Day March
Victory Celebration at Vedanta AGM

Shut Down Guantanamo

It seemed a busy month, and despite having a couple of weeks away I felt I still needed a holiday at the end of it.

It was also an opportunity to evaluate the Fuji EX-1 camera, but I ended still not convinced if it will really work for me. Perhaps I’ll try it again when the promised wide zoom finally appears.

Now its time to catch up with September, which is almost over.
Continue reading August 2013 at last

Finally I was back in London on the last day of August, sorry that I’d missed several events, including an ’emergency’ protest called at short notice when US military action against Syria seemed imminent. But action in the UK parliament, or at least a misjudgement by the prime minister, had lost our government a vote on the issue, causing Obama to have to rethink.

Speakers at Saturday’s rally suggested it was a great victory for those who protested against military intervention, but the facts don’t bear that out. If Cameron had agreed to the Labour amendment, our parliament would have voted overwhelmingly in favour – if with a little more caution than the PM would have liked. But Cameron appears to have thought he had the chance of a Falklands moment and went for it, only to fall at the first fence.

It was perhaps the protests that made Milliband urge caution and to wait until the UN report was available – despite knowing that the UN report would throw little light on the matter, as it was not charged with determining who was responsible.

I’m not a supporter of the Syrian regime and Stop the War finds itself with some strange bed-fellows in its protests – as it did over Libya. But military intervention now would certainly not be right or useful.

Its also difficult for me to sort out some of the various groups involved. The Alevi are quite distinct from the Alawites though it it is easy to confuse the two, both sects of Shia Islam. But to find Alevis with a placard ‘Al-Qaeda is Murdering Alevis in Syria’ confuses me. Although Al-Qaeda doubtless would see Alevis as heretical and so to be killed, I understood few if any lived in Syria, though there are plenty of others who they are killing.

I try hard to show the different points of view at events such as this, taking care (usually) to frame at least some images so that placards and banners are legible. One problem at this protest was than the main banner was just too long, and very difficult to get it all in a single picture, even with the 16-35mm more or less as wide as it goes, and then only by going back so far that the composition became rather boring and the figures holding it too small.

It makes a better picture from rather closer – and the iron grip of more cooperative Stop the War Stewards relaxed just a little for a few seconds to let me take this – but you have to supply your own ‘NO’.  I was able to place the clock tower of Big Ben between the placard and the banner and the figures holding the banner are larger, and the whole image more dynamic. It was taken with the 10.5mm and verticals were straightened with the Fisheye-Hemi plugin.

The attraction of the young women with Syrian flags and slogans on their faces was obvious from the start of the protest (not least by the crowd of photographers I found pressing on both my shoulders after I moved in close to photograph them) and I made a few attempts to take their pictures later in the event. My favourite image when I viewed them on the camera back turned out to me not quite sharp enough. Stupidly I was working at ISO 640 and the 1/125 second wasn’t fast enough as I was walking backwards close in front of her – taken with the lens at 38mm (57mm equiv.) It was a bright sunny day, but this image was taken in shadow, and I could well have given myself a couple of stops more to play with. But perhaps it wasn’t really the best picture – those little images on the back of the camera are usually misleading, but the fish that gets away is always larger.

There were plenty of other images of her and her friends that I took that were usable. Some at least are probably better. Others are certainly not so good, and at Downing St there was such a mob of photographers than it was impossible to get good pictures. I particularly like another of the same woman, taken a few seconds earlier. I like the tight framing of the second woman, and the kind of visual tension between the two. This is full frame as I took the picture, and possibly I might trim a fraction at the right, where the wide-angle (18/27mm) makes that hand close to the camera just a little too much.

Story and more pictures at Obama Don’t Attack Syria.

Continue reading Hands off Syria