Re-photo

People outside World Media Services shout at a small group of SEA supporters across the road

Cricklewood isn’t a place I often visit, and perhaps there is not a great deal to draw the visitor there. Even when I was engaged in my encyclopaedic photographic wanderings of London in the 1980s and 1990s I’m not sure if I penetrated to its core (if it has one.) Its always seemed to me a kind of in-between place, between Kilburn and the North Circular, Willesden Green and Fortune Green, split between the boroughs of Brent, Barnet and Camden. A railway line – and some railway cottages, the A5 and some shops.

World Media Services with North West London United supporters outside to protect it from the SEA

And it was one of those shops that was the object of my journey. A closed-down kebab place, the room above it the home of a small web company run by Egyptians (though it wasn’t clear whether it was still in use) with the grandiose title of World Media Services. One of the activities based there was an unofficial English language web site for the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), a political party founded way back in the colonial era in Egypt in 1928 which became a rather unexpected beneficiary of the Arab Spring which led to its becoming legal in 2011, having been illegal in Egypt for most of its existence, and its candidate Mohammed Morsi (standing for the Freedom and Justice Party) was elected as president in 2012.

Not unsurprisingly there was some activity in London around World Media Services when Morsi was deposed by the military a year later and there were protests by the supporters of the MB around the world. But it was probably sloppy reporting that led to the small group in Cricklewood being designated as the European headquarters of the MB, and if it had been important in their organisation it seems clear that their activities in Europe are now based in Graz, Austria – also, coincidentally the home of the bi-lingual photography magazine Camera Austria.

The SEA march from Kilburn started with 3 men and a woman some way behind

But Cricklewood is a little closer to home than Graz for supporters of the South East Alliance, a right wing group which includes former supporters of the EDL, BNP, EVF, NF, British Movement, and other extreme right groups, led by Paul Pitt, former  Essex/South East EDL organiser (the EDL called him a Nazi and expelled him in 2012; he was fined for racially aggravated intentional harassment, alarm or distress outside the US Embassy in May 2011.)

I get insulted taking pictures

I missed the first two SEA protests in Cricklewood in June and July (I was on holiday for the second and had better things to do on the first) and was surprised given the poor turnout for their second protest they had decided to try again. But this third round, which I was able to cover turned out to be even smaller than the second, disappointing for photography but rather positive for Cricklewood. One poster read “We Are Happy in our Diversity. Leave Us Alone to Enjoy It!’ and perhaps that wish will now be respected.

I don’t like covering the extreme right, but I think it is important to show what they are like, and I try to do so in an objective fashion, reporting as accurately as I can what they say and what they do. I think they condemn themselves more effectively than I could. They constantly complain of unfair treatment by the press and there is sometimes some truth in this, but swearing and threatening reporters as many of them do is hardly a way to encourage fair reporting.

I get attacked with a Union Flag on a bamboo pole

I was particularly disgusted at the disrespect the SEA, who claim to be patriots, showed towards their national flags, using them and the bamboo poles they were on as weapons, attempting to poke out the eyes of photographers or damage their cameras. And at the police response to this; rather than warning or arresting those using offensive weapons or confiscating them, they simply prevented photographers going within range of them.

At the start of the SEA march at Kilburn there were four photographers present (including one apparently working for the SEA – most of the others had stayed at Cricklewood) and four marchers, and although another perhaps 20 turned up at Cricklewood it was still a rather pathetic event, with the protesters outnumbered by around 150 people supporting the counter protest. Some who had come in the morning had left early when they saw how small the SEA protest was.

I think the pictures – you can see many more at South East Alliance ‘Racist Thugs Not Welcome’ – show clearly the differences between the two groups which faced each other in Cricklewood. On one side an atmosphere of suspicion and hate and on the other a welcome and openness to being photographed.  I think the account I’ve given of the event is accurate, fair and unbiased (except perhaps for the headline, which originally read South East Alliance told ‘Racist Thugs Not Welcome’ but that was too long.)
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In August I went to two events organised because of the shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and the military-style response by the US authorities to the protests there that followed his murder.

Although the scale of that repression is something we haven’t yet seen in the UK, I’m writing this a couple of months later just before I go out to photograph the annual march by the United Families and Friends Campaign who have a long list of 3,180 individuals who have died in state custody since 1969; at the bottom it states ‘Too many have died in questionable circumstances. Too many killed unlawfully … and pitifully too few held to account for the deaths of those we name here.’ Also published today, accompanied by one of my photographs (and another by Matthew David), is the closing speech by writer and activist Kojo Kyerewaa from last month’s annual conference of the London Campaign Against Police & State Violence.

And another reminder that similar things happen here in London were the speeches at the first of the events I covered of Carole Duggan, the aunt of Mark Duggan, unarmed and surrendering to police when they shot him, and at the second by Marcia Rigg, the sister of Sean Rigg, killed inside Brixton Police station in August 2008.

The two events, both at the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square, were organised by different groups, the first by ‘London Black Revs‘, the Revs being short for revolutionaries, rather than men of the cloth, and the second, ten days later, by a wider range of organisations, led by Unite Against Fascism, and including the United Friends and Family Campaign as well as trade unions and other campaigns.

Prominent at the first event were the family of Mark Duggan, and in particular his aunt Carole Duggan, who spoke eloquently and at some length drawing out the parallels between his death and that of Michael Brown. Both were black, both were unarmed, both had raised their hands in surrender when they were shot by police. And both deaths were followed by a response from their communities that were turned to violence by police responses and followed by panic reactions by politicians. Both brought into swing a huge media effort by the authorities feeding lies and covering up the truth about what happened, and in various ways conspiring to deny justice.

A torrential rainstorm added to the photographic problems of the event, though also providing some opportunities. At first I sheltered – along with many of those present – under the trees along the edge of the park facing the embassy, but soon the rain coming through and under their dense leafy canopy was too much, and I had to put my head down and dash for the cover of the broad concrete overhang of one of the embassy lodges with those shown in the picture above. It’s perhaps unfortunate that this picture suggests a rather smaller gathering, with others like me sheltering under the trees, under the canopy of the left-hand lodge and a few standing under umbrellas out of view.

Although it does show the rain, I don’t think any of my pictures give a real impression of just how heavy it was, a photographic problem for which I have no solution. Using flash certainly doesn’t work, though the light had sunk considerably and it would have been useful on this account, but it lights up every raindrop, with those close to the lens appearing over-large and out of focus and of course brighter. An effect well exploited by Martin Parr in his 1982 book  ‘Bad Weather‘,  I think the only one of his books I own that I actually paid my own money for, but not something that generally appeals to me or to editors. There are pictures in there by Martin that mean none of us should ever feel the need to do the same again.

My damp dash did get me closer to the speakers, and I was able to photograph them from the dry as they, standing a few yards out in the open and holding an umbrella as well as a megaphone, were still getting rather wet. Although an umbrella stops most of the rain, with heavy driving rain a fine spray passes through and slowly soaks.

Eventually the rain did slacken and stop, and photographers and some of the people came out from under the canopies, giving more varied opportunities for photography. We were a little too close to the embassy for many pictures to include the US Eagle and flag was too sodden to fly, but there was a small plaque on the gates that I could include in a few images, though it meant stopping down the lens to a rather smaller aperture than I would normally use to get sufficient depth of field.

Fortunately it had got a lot brighter – the sun was out and causing some contrast problems. For the man speaking under the umbrella I had been working at 1/100s f5 (ISO 800) with the 18-105DX lens at 52mm (78mm equiv), while at the same ISO the exposure for those holding the ‘London to #ferguson’ posters I needed 1/500 f13 – at 66mm (99mm equiv.)  I think that means a difference of over 5 stops, though it’s too early to really do the maths as I write.

At the end of the protest, those present decided they would like a group photo in front of the embassy. I’m never a fan of group photos (except perhaps the Brown sisters) and certainly not for groups of this size. Photography always works best (or certainly almost always) on a more intimate scale – if Hill and Adamson had been able to photograph all 457 of the ministers at the First General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland we would have just had one rather boring photograph rather than the earliest (and still one of the best) great collection of photographic portraits.

And the picture the activists wanted did rather remind me of that ‘Disruption Picture’, except there were rather fewer people and they were far less well organised. It too was impossible to take as the area in front of the large group was crowded with people with cameras and phones in the way. As usual people there were people shouting and gesturing ‘Let’s move back, move back‘ but while photographers might reluctantly respond if they see any chance that others will do so rather than just as usual move in front of them, holding up a phone to take a picture (or worse video) seems to render people terminally deaf and impervious to their surroundings. It really isn’t a licence to walk in front of photographers.

The only way I could manage to get everyone in – if not very satisfactorily – was by working close to one end of the wide spread group with the 16mm fisheye – and then converting the image to a cylindrical perspective to lose some of the fisheye effect. But even with the fisheye I could not get far enough back to take the picture from the centre of the group without people with phones and cameras being in the way.

The second protest, ten days later, was held in the evening, and towards the north end of the embassy frontage, in front of the rather dreary statue of Eisenhower. The organisers had produced a graphic poster, two black hands with the message ‘Hands UP! Don’t Shoot!‘ which dominates perhaps rather too many of my pictures, though it was unmissable.

Weymann Bennett is someone I find it hard to take a bad picture of, and there were others speaking that I also like working with, including Marcia Rigg and Zita Holborne, who had brought along a couple of placards of her own.

You can see her other one in another image of her, standing together with Marcia Rigg which is together with a larger selection of pictures from both protests – and text about them – on My London Diary:

Solidarity with Ferguson
Hands Up! Against racist Police Shootings

No Justice, No Peace!

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I’ve never been a fan of The Sun newspaper, and have never bought a copy, though I have leafed through the occasional copy left on the train or elsewhere. It’s always seemed stuffed full of non-news about so-called celebrities and opinionated views lacking any factual basis with only the occasional actual news story, usually given an impressively shallow treatment. To me it’s always been the kind of newspaper that makes it hard to hold the views I have about the importance of a free press. And of course The Sun isn’t a free press, but a press controlled by the interests of one man, the owner of the giant media corporation which owns it. It isn’t about all the news that’s fit to print, but about all that Murdoch wants printed, news or not.

Why Murdoch should want pictures like those on Page 3 printed was simple when the paper was launched; it was a straight-forward commercial decision that he thought it would increase sales. It reflected and reinforced a particularly insulting view of the male working-class audience he wanted to buy the paper. It’s a decision he is now apparently having second thoughts about, as the world has changed since the first Page 3 appeared in 1970, shortly after Murdoch took over the title.  Around 40% of Sun readers are women now, and the No More Page 3 petition has so far attracted over 200,000 signatures.

When I wrote about photography for a living, I used to get fairly frequent approaches from so-called ‘glamour’ studios, asking me to publicise their activities, and sometimes offering me the chance to attend their courses free of charge. Although at times I wrote about photography of the nude (male and female) my response to them was always that I found the photography they promoted of no interest, though perhaps I tried to put it politely. But my objection to ‘Page 3’ is not that it shows part-naked women, but that it trivialises what is something very basic and fundamental to our human condition. Worse than that, I think it is essentially dishonest, telling lies about our humanity.

Frankly too, ‘Page 3’ is boring. That’s not to in any way disrespect the young women involved, but the mould into which they are processed. And in many ways the photographers and others involved in that processing are very professional in what they do. It probably isn’t something I could do – but then I don’t want to. I’d find it hard to live with myself if I did.

Part of the reason why ‘Page 3’ is boring is the near-interchangeability of the models, day after day. Real women are far more varied and more interesting – even if not half-naked – and of course not just, and even to a photographer not largely, for their physical characteristics. Too often women I’m photographing tell me that they “don’t look good in photographs” and I think my pictures of them prove the opposite to the world – if not to their own satisfaction.

One of the photographers had brought a chalk board for people to write their reasons for being at the event and be photographed holding. I took pictures of some of them holding it too and you can see them in No More Page Three on My London Diary, but I was too busy taking photographs to write my own view at the event.

Photographically the main problem I encountered was wind. It wasn’t a bad day, but a chilly breeze was being generated or attracted by the Shard and the News UK towers, and the candles on the cake for the second birthday of the campaign kept blowing out. I was also in danger of over-indulging in the seventies party food!
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The series of protests outside one of London’s more prestigious (or at least more expensive) new developments is still continuing – after writing this I’ll be getting on the train to go to the twelth weekly event.  Other committments have prevented me from covering it every week, but I’ve managed to get to most of them, and it has been interesting to see how the events have developed.

August 20th was the fourth week (and the third that I’d attended – you can see the first and third weeks on My London Diary) and as my headline Class War steps up ‘Poor Doors’ protest suggests, the protests were developing.

It was just as well that there were some incidents, as otherwise I was having trouble with trying to come up with something fresh each week, as the basic set-up was the same on each occasion. Protesters, banners, stickers, leafleting, the building security…  It really was getting hard to produce new images.

The 8mm fisheye gives an overall view with the three banners in front of the ‘rich door’

At least the banners had changed a little. Class War, the loose group that is behind these protests, has a good line in banners, intended to offend. As I wrote in My London Diary:

Class War draws attention to real and important issues – the gentrification of this and other areas of London and the financially based social cleansing that is resulting. They do so in a manner that is confrontational and theatrical, but amusing and not always entirely literal. Among the banners at today’s protest was that of the ‘Women’s Death Brigade’ with its message ‘Smiters of the High & Mighty’ and ‘F**K Capitalism! F**k Patriarchy!’

Almost everyone would agree that London has a housing crisis. And that little is actually being done about it. Most of the new developments – such as this block, ‘One Commercial St’ (confusingly its actual address is in Whitechapel High St) are actually making the situation for ordinary Londoners worse. As I also write in my piece on the protest ‘Tower Hamlets has a huge list of people wanting housing. The whole idea of building large blocks as investment properties for rich overseas buyers is simply obscene.’

Tower Hamlets council is at least I think doing its best to house its people, unlike neighbouring Newham, a monolithically Labour council. But council powers are very limited and no match for the developers who make huge profits from blocks such as these. The best they can manage are a few crumbs from the table – including the flats here behind the ‘poor door’ in a dingy alley along the side of the building.

You can read more about what actually happened on the evening, and more on the background in My London Diary. When I wrote it, I believed that there was no internal connection in the building between the parts containing the ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ residents, but that appears to be untrue, though I’m sure the door between the two parts is normally kept firmly locked.

But although there were some incidents to photograph, and I think I took some decent pictures of them, it also left me thinking about how much the still photographs leave out, and how easy it is to miss the critical moment.

In photographing this and other protests, I normally try to avoid taking pictures of people who are not really involved in the event, except in the background. Most of those actually going in and out of the ‘rich door’ are tourists staying there on holiday lets, who know nothing about the building and are not profiting from it, and unless they choose to become involved – perhaps by stopping to argue with the protesters – have little to do with the story.

I’m not sure why I took a picture of the woman in high heels and a striped top carrying her white bag towards the ‘rich door’, perhaps just to show that people were still going in despite the protest. But I missed the moment just after this when she turned rapidly and snatched the leaflets from the hand of the woman at the left holding one of the banners, throwing them into the air, and by the time I had reacted she had turned back towards the door and the flyers were actually flying. Had I been taking a movie it would have been an interesting incident. You can tell how rapidly it happened as the papers are still in the air in the second image and the others in the picture have not reacted.

Finally, when someone came forward to hold her end of the banner, the protester moved to pick up the leaflets, as another person – a man in a grey suit – stepped carefully over the leaflets to enter the rich door.

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