Re-photo

There are some events it’s hard to know how to cover them. The issues behind them may be important, but there isn’t something to make them really news, either in the event itself or in something visually novel. I’ve written many times about the continuing shameful scandal of Guantanamo, and in particular of the failure to release Shaker Aamer despite his having been cleared for release years ago.

Protesters in black hoods and orange jumpsuits although still striking are no longer novel, and while their daily presence opposite the Houses of Parliament when it is in session does act as a reminder to MPs about the need to take action, I find it hard to find anything new visually to say about them.

The daily protests by the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign continue until July 18, with a handful of protesters each day, there with placards and banners.  On the final day they plan a larger protest, and I’ve made a note in my diary to go. And on those days before then, if I happen to be in the area for other reasons or am passing through I’ll stop and take a few pictures of the continuing vigil. I miss the Parliament Square Peace Campaign, who for around 11 years made visiting what is otherwise one of the capitals more dreary locations – essentially a grass-covered large traffic island – rather more interesting.

Parliament Square display in March 2007

The authorities talk about it as a World Heritage site, but it is really a desolate and sterile emptiness at the centre of a World Heritage site, with a few largely disappointing statues on its fringe along with some rather ugly flagpoles. Brian and Babs and the rest really did liven it up a bit while they were there and the square seems really empty without them. The campaign still has an on-line presence, but it isn’t the same, and their long-drawn out legal battle with an establishment that has stooped to some very dirty tricks, and bending and twisting the law in various subterfuges is hard to follow.

I was walking through the square on my way to a protest outside the Home Office in Marsham St against the deportations of gay asylum seekers to Uganda. Again it isn’t too easy to produce something visual that will make people want to read the story, though at least there were banners and placards as well as some lively protesters. You can see what I made of them in Stop Deporting Lesbians to Uganda.

On my way from there to the Ministry of Justice, I took a slight detour to go by Old Palace Yard, as I’d earlier recognised the arch of balloons I’d photographed in May ( ‘Christian Concern’ Against Gay Marriage) being carried in that direction. The Lords were about to debate an amendment intended to sabotage the gay marriage bill, and as well as the anti-gay Christians, there was also a counter-protest with Stonewall banners. I took a few pictures and rushed on, deciding it would be worth returning later if I had time.

The main event I’d come to photograph was a protest by lawyers at the government proposals on legal aid which will mean that those reliant on it get only nominal cut-price representation from the likes of Tesco and Eddie Stobart legal services. (Again I’d photographed Lawyers Funeral for Legal Aid last month.)  I got there ten minutes before it was due to start only to find that they had begun events even earlier, which annoyed me rather.

The lighting was interesting but rather tricky, with areas of sun and deep shadow which were mostly a nuisance, especially with the placards casting shadows across faces. But here there were more balloons, and the light did rather make one man’s bald head look a little like the balloons above him, though fortunately not remotely purple.

[to be continued in Westminster Afternoon 2]

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Sometimes it’s the job of photographers to look under unpleasant stones and I felt this was one of them as I walked into a rather small and disconsolate looking group of the British National Party supporters on College Green. It isn’t often I agree with David Cameron,  reported by  the Daily Telegraph “If you vote for the BNP you are voting for a bunch of fascists … They dress up in a suit and knock on your door in a nice way but they are still Nazi thugs.”

In the middle of a media scrum, their leader Nick Griffin was being interviewed and photographed, and I joined the throng. What I heard did nothing to improve my opinion of his ideas.  At first I was a little way back in the crowd, but as others moved away I gradually moved forward, still surrounded by others with cameras.

Rather than use a longer lens and frame just him and the placard I took a few frames showing the media interest – above with the D700 and 16-35 at 19mm. At ISO 800, working on P gave me 1/400 f10, enough depth of field to get everything but  the foreground lenses sharp, and the shutter speed fast enough to work where there was a little unavoidable pushing from the photographers around me.  I was happy (and a little lucky)  with the framing.

Gradually as other photographers had got their pictures and moved out I got closer, really too close, and took other pictures – which you can see at BNP Exploiting Woolwich Killing Stopped and then Griffin started moving around and talking to a few of his supporters – and getting stopped for more video interviews.

I wanted to take some pictures that showed clearly where he was, with Parliament in the background, and was able to use a longer lens – the 18-105mm  DX at 50mm (75mm equiv – a ‘portrait lens’) on the D800E.  I was pleased to be able to have the clearly anti-Islamic placard – with its ‘no mosque’ motif behind him (though it could have been more visible), along with the slightly blurred and perhaps a little sinister face of a supporter to his right, and the message ‘Enough is enough’.  The image on the web is perhaps a little too dark.

I’d also photographed some of the other BNP members at the protest, though some were not too keen to be photographed, and turned away. But by the time they did so I’d usually already taken their pictures. Some were more relaxed about it, and I had a few fairly normal conversations with some of those I photographed.

But the main story was that the BNP had been prevented from marching by anti-fascists, various groups and individuals who had come to Westminster determined to stop the BNP making capital out of the killing of Lee Rigby. They were defying the police in blocking the road, and I photographed a number of them being arrested and led away to the waiting police vans and a couple of double-decker buses – some more dramatically than others.

But although the police made a large number of arrests – and a few of them seemed to clearly enjoy a little sadistic arm-twisting and thumping of the protesters – I don’t think their heart was really in the job, and they didn’t feel moved to make a really great effort to let the fascists march.

This was one picture of the anti-fascists that I particularly liked. The wide-angle (16mm)  emphasizes the power of the arm holding the megaphone, the banner behind has the clear message ‘Nazis Out’ and the newspaper headline ‘After Woolwich’ adds the context. For me when I was taking the series of exposures that this came from, there was a definite feeling that I was photographing the re-enactment of a socialist realist poster, and I did so with some amusement.  The image is full-frame, though possibly a very slight trim at the left and right edge might improve it.

There are some others I thought weren’t bad too – you can see the rest at Anti-Fascists Stop BNP Wreath Laying.

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One of the questions I’m often asked is how I find out about the events that I photograph. There isn’t a simple answer. Basically I build up a diary from information that I get from various sources, and I think I’ve written a little about this in the past.

But sometimes I just listen to the news and think that people must be protesting about a particular issue – and the protests taking place in Istanbul over Gezi Park were an obvious example. On Saturday 1 June I switched on the computer after breakfast and took to Google and Facebook to find out what was happening in London and when. It turned out to be surprisingly difficult, taking me around 25 minutes to find that people were meeting at Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park at 11am that morning, and to work out that if I caught the next train I could be there too.

So I was there  just a few minutes after 11am and taking pictures of a large group of people standing around in small groups, with some sporadic chanting from different areas of the crowd, people carrying banners and placards. Although it was a large crowd it was generally fairly easy to move around, although often not easy to get exactly where I wanted to be, with other people – including a few other photographers – often getting in the way.

When things get very crowded, the 10.5mm often comes in useful, letting you work very close to your subject. Both of the top two images in this post are from the full DX format on the D800E.

Here I was standing very close to the banner, and holding the camera up high to get an idea of the crowd behind. It’s hard to keep it absolutely level, but here the slight tilt gives an added dynamic. I was perhaps lucky that the raised fist almost reaches the top of the frame, as I wasn’t able to see through the viewfinder, but I was trying just to include it. In both frames I’ve retained the perspective of the lens, which emphasizes the central figures, rather than alter it to a cylindrical perspective. I haven’t even added the small ‘distortion correction’ in Lightroom which often helps, just relieving the extreme compression in the corners – a value of 10 or 20% often improves things, these are just as the lens made them.

I was also using the 16-35mm, and the picture below was taken at 32mm at full-frame on the D700 – just a slight wide-angle. The poster the woman is holding is for the Turkish Communist Party. This was the last of six single frames that I took of her over a period of around four seconds, working both with her expression and with the exact placement of the crescent and star on the Turkish flag behind her (the crescent could almost be the blade of a sickle.) I think there is also just enough of the ‘Occupy Gezi’ at the right of the frame and the people around to provide context.

After around half an hour things got much more organised and both less visually interesting and a much harder situation in which to work, as almost everyone sat down. People were tightly packed and it was almost impossible to move around, as well as making me feel much more visible standing up, and much more in the way.

I took a few more pictures – this one at 16mm – and then left.  I had another protest to photograph that was about to start and wasn’t managing to do much here now. I’d hoped to get back later and take pictures either of the march or the rally opposite the Turkish embassy, but by the time I’d finished other things it was almost certainly too late, and I was definitely feeling too tired, so I didn’t make it. It might well have been disappointing, as often if not usually the best pictures of events are taken before they really start.  You can see the pictures I did make at London Supports Turkish Spring.

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The ‘My London Diary‘ calendar has a rather variable lag behind the rest of the world, but at last it is now officially June, and May is out, though today it feels rather chilly and I  wonder if casting a clout was premature.

May was rather a busy month for me, probably because I had sworn I would take things a little easier, but things just kept on happening. There are of course seasonal events in May – May Day marches and rallies, May Queen Events and the Bengali New Year – as well as continuing protests against the vicious mix of incompetence, profiteering and malice towards the poor in the government’s policies and renewed attempts to persuade them to truly put pressure on the USA over Guantanamo and more.

But it was also a month where I got away from London a bit on a couple of family walks (a change is almost as good as a rest, but they tend to be rather exhausting) and found a couple of the exhibition openings worth taking a few pictures at. One of them, Estuary,  included some of my own work, and was a reminder to me of how much I’ve neglected some areas of interest recently.

Perhaps I’ll take things easier in June, but somehow I doubt it unless my doctor makes me. But despite being June I think I’m going to get a jumper to put on.

Muslims march for Lee Rigby

March Against Monsanto
Don’t hang Prof Bhullar!
UEFA gets a Red Card for Israel
ArtEco Opening – Daniele Tamagni
Battersea etc

Daddy’s Pig heads for the Trough
Lawyers Funeral for Legal Aid
Bring Shaker Home
‘Christian Concern’ Against Gay Marriage
Tamils protest Sri Lankan Genocide
More US Embassy Protests
Guantánamo Murder Scene
London Marches to Defend NHS
End Israeli Ethnic Cleansing
Staines Walk

Canary Wharf & Estuary Opening
Hands off Assata!
Leveller Thomas Rainsborough
Bikers
Boishakhi Mela Procession
Kidnapped by Pirates
London’s 101st May Queen
Cleaners Return to Capgemini
Bank Holiday Walk

Beckenham May Queens
Cleaners at Clifford Chance
TUC May Day Rally

London May Day March
Finsbury

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I met the  ‘Red Card Israeli Racism Campaign‘ last year when they were protesting against the detention in Israel of Palestinian footballer Mahmoud Sarsak, who was then on hunger strike against his detention without charge since 2009, when he was arrested while moving from Gaza to a new club on the West Bank.  Their protests and those of other groups around the world led to his case being taken up by footballers and football associations around the world, and he was was finally released in July 2012 after appeals from the international professional footballers association FIFPro, Eric Cantona, Frédéric Kanouté and the presidents of EUFA and FIFA, as well as others from outside football.

Their protest on May 24 was to take the message to the UEFA meeting taking place in a hotel on Park Lane that they should not be holding June’s under-21 men’s football tournament in Israel, because of that country’s continuing record of human rights abuses and the breaking of UEFA’s rules in their treatment of Palestinian footballers, two of whom are still in prison in Israel.

There were two parts to the protest. Opposite the hotel in the wide central reservation of Park Lane they were holding a rally all day, and a march was going to the rally from St Pancras International station, where around 40 protesters were arriving by train from France and Belgium.

My plan was to start with the marchers at St Pancras, walk with them part of the way and then take a bus so I could be at the rally well before them to take pictures of the rally and their arrival. On my way to the start of the march, I’d noticed that the police were preparing for a large protest outside the Indian High Commission, and had decided that rather than take a direct bus, I could take a bus there, spend a short time taking pictures there and then get on another bus to go on to the ‘Red Card’ rally.

It more or less worked. The only real problem was the rain, moderate but steady before the march started, it soon began to come down heavily, and I, the protesters and my cameras were all getting rather wet.  Not just wet, despite it being May, I was also getting rather cold, as I was working with my jacket open halfway down so I could tuck my cameras under it out of the rain when I wasn’t using either of them. I was glad I’d thought to put on a vest under my shirt and a jumper on top, but I was still chilly.

I was pleased to be able to leave the march after around half a mile, when it still had another couple of miles to do, and head for the bus stop. It wasn’t too long before a bus came, but again the weather was a little problem. London’s traffic is slow at most times during the day, but when it rains, more people use their cars as well as the buses. The bus was full and I had to stand for a couple of stop, and going down to Holborn it was stuck in a slow-moving stream, slower than walking, but finally we arrived close the the High Commission.

Both police and protesters were obviously expecting a much larger protest than the group of around twenty Sikhs I found there – and again I expect many were put off by the weather. It was a part of a protest that has been going on since the middle of April opposite Downing Street, against the hanging of Professor Bhullar, a Sikh who has been held on death row for 19 years after his conviction on the basis of a confession forced out of him under torture; the final barriers to his execution were removed in April and he could now be hanged at any time.

Here all the protesters were at least under umbrellas, while I was working in the rain. It is just possible to hold an umbrella while taking photographs, but it isn’t easy, and it makes it difficult to get the camera in exactly the right position – those little movements that can make all the difference to a picture.  And when working with very wide lenses – like the 16mm end of the 16-35mm – it is rather easy to let the umbrella drift into the picture, and it also cuts down the light. So although I didn’t stay long taking pictures, the rain was by now heavy, and I got rather wet by the time I rushed to the bus stop for the bus to Mayfair.

I’d hoped the cameras might dry off a bit on the bus journey, but the bus was steamed up, and by now I was running out of dry cloths to wipe the gear with, but I removed as much of the surface moisture as I could. Again it was a slow journey, thanks to the rain and traffic, at the end of which I had around half an hour’s walk in the rain to the rally. But at least I could zip up my coat and pull up my hood as I walked (it gets in the way too much when I’m taking pictures.)

At the rally there was a little shelter from the large trees, but by now the rain was also dripping from them, and again I got wet taking pictures. By now the viewfinder of both Nikons was misted up and it was hard to see exactly what I was taking, but at least to start with the lenses were still clear, and the dim lighting meant I could see the images fairly clearly on the back of the camera, and they seemed reasonably sharp.

You can clearly see some streaks of rain in the top left of this picture

It wasn’t too long before the march arrived, though I didn’t make any very good pictures – the weather was against me, and the marchers rather bedraggled. I was ready to leave, but hung on for a few minutes as Mahmoud Sarsak was present and going to speak. It was tricky keeping him in the frame at the telephoto end of the 18-105mm when he was on the makeshift platform, needing to keep wiping the front element of the lens (and cursing the fact that I’d lost the lens hood a few days earlier and was waiting for a replacement to arrive – it really does help to keep the rain off. By now I was only getting a very dim image in the viewfinder, and even on the camera back it wasn’t too clear, but there was only a little condensation actually inside the lens and the images were still more or less ok  I kept at it for a few minutes until I was sure I had a couple of decent frames, and then hurried away to catch the bus to the station.

Palestinian footballer Mahmoud Sarsak
I was quite pleased with the pictures I took given the conditions, and even more pleased when the cameras and lenses all seemed to dry out without problems, though neither the Nikon 16-35mm or the 18-105mm are made for working in the rain, and are likely soon to need expensive repairs or replacement.

You can see the rest of the pictures and more about the protests at UEFA gets a Red Card for Israel and Don’t hang Prof Bhullar!
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