I’ve been a little busy over the past few days, with little time to post here, though I have put some work on Demotix from my day out with the student protests on Thursday.
There, along with the pictures you can read my view of the protest, which was a huge and very spread out affair, both in terms of time and territory. Its obviously not possible for a single person to be everywhere and see everything and every photographer there has to make choices about where they go and what they photograph. So both my story and my pictures reflect this.
Colour coding:Green=protester, blue=police, red=photographer
Some of those are made on the spur of the moment, dictated by events. When I saw the ‘Book Bloc’, protesters carrying large and thick placards with the names of well-known works such as ‘Brave New World’, ‘The Society of the Spectacle’, ‘One Dimensional Man’ and even Richmal Crompton’s ‘Just William’ trying to use these as shields and push their way through the barriers and riot police, naturally I tried (though with not a great deal of success) to photograph this, and again when I saw flames and a huge cloud of black smoke, along with everyone else I went to take pictures.
But there are other choices that are more basic. Some hinge on equipment. I seldom use long lenses – the longest in my current camera bag is an 18-125mm on my D300 (equivalent to around 175mm on the FX format.) I like to be in there, close to people when I photograph them, which isn’t always healthy when protests get a little heated. I used to have a 55-200mm, but lost it during a scrum in one of last month’s demos, and can’t quite decide whether to replace it – and if so with what.
Some photographers like me still wear woolly hats
Over the past few years, many of my colleagues who cover protests have begun to carry protective helmets, dangling from their backpacks – and on their heads when needed. It’s something no well-dressed photojournalist is without these days, but I decided against doing so. There are fortunately relatively few occasions here in the UK where they are really needed, and then mainly as protection against police batons. But there have been a couple of times in recent weeks when I’ve felt rather exposed without one, or have decided to keep a little out of the firing line.
It’s also a matter of philosophy. I go to events wanting to tell the story rather than aiming to capture spectacular or saleable images. It isn’t generally how the press works – as we’ve seen in the last few days with page after page devoted to a minor incident involving two royals in a car deliberately escorted into an area full of wandering protesters. Like most other photographers I was miles away at the time. Or a huge amount of coverage given to one probably rather drunk young man who decided to swing on a flag at the Cenotaph – rather than the many thousands throughout the day who had treated this monument with respect.
Young students protest in Parliament Square
Of course there are themes that interest me. The large number of young protesters, many school sixth-formers, some of whom have occupied their schools. The changing nature of demonstrations in this country with a growing anarchist fringe. The growing disconnection between established political parties, trade unions etc and many people – especially students (this wasn’t one demonstration, it was two, with the NUS and others curiously sidelined by their own choice on the Embankment.) The problems of policing demonstrations and of policing the police and so on.
Ministry of Lies
All of these things feed in to what images I choose to make (and not to make) when covering events. There are around 30 images on Demotix, and I’ll put more on My London Diary in a day or two.