On Saturday I went to photograph a protest marking 10 years of illegal detention in the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay which was taking place on the North Terrace of Trafalgar Square. I’d put this in my diary some weeks earlier, having been given a flyer about it by one of the organisers, who had also sent me several press releases. I’ve photographed other related events over the years, sometimes being the only photographer present and more often with just a handful of others, though a few have been high profile media events.
Shut Guantanamo – End 10 Years of Shame
I wasn’t pleased to receive an e-mail the day before the event which had been sent by an Editorial Assistant at Demotix, one of the on-line sites where I submit images and stories giving details of the event and begging photographers to cover it, because I knew that this would mean the event being swamped by people with cameras, and it was. In my account on Demotix I estimate the number of people present at the protest at around 200; what I didn’t say was that over a third of those were there to take photographs. Possibly they even outnumbered the protesters.
Free Shaker Aamer – an ‘Anonymous’ protester in a ‘V for Vendetta’ mask and ‘Metropolitan Peace’ uniform
Don’t get me wrong. Anyone present with a camera has as much right to be there and take pictures as I do. But among the photographers I met there were at least a dozen of us who regularly send pictures to Demotix, including some whose work is generally as good as anyone working for the press or conventional agencies (and a few of them were present too.) Demotix would have had far more pictures than it needed without sending out the request. And almost certainly it would have had better pictures, because the crowd of photographers it had been partly responsible for generating made it difficult for all of us to work. It does seem to be shooting itself (and certainly its more regular photographers) in the foot.
The line of ‘detainees’
The excessive number of photographers did not only make it difficult for us to work, with other photographers constantly walking into pictures as we were taking them (and I’m sure I walked into other people’s pictures – and a couple of times I realised I had done so and apologised) but also made the event less satisfying for those taking part. One elderly woman grumbled to me “why do cameramen think they are more important than the rest of us” as I tried to get out of her way after taking a few pictures of one of the speakers, and I didn’t stop to enlighten her as I was busy working. Of course I try to disrupt events as little as possible and to keep out of people’s way as much as I can (although I admit some others are rather less careful) but in the end I have a job to do, and doing it badly would help no-one.
Photographers, protesters in orange jumpsuits with Guantanamo prisoner numbers and Nelson
Of course ‘cameramen’ – and ‘camerawomen’ of whom there were quite a few present – are vital to events such as this, whose purpose is to gain publicity for the cause. So I was sent a ‘media release’ (also on-line) which told me about the ‘Photo opportunity’ when ‘activists dressed in orange jumpsuits and black hoods will perform a visual display representing the 171 prisoners who remain at Guantánamo.’
Free Shaker Aamer – a Londoner still in Guantanamo after almost 10 years
Photographically – apart from avoiding other photographers filling my frame and a few problems with exposure, particularly in some of the close pictures – if a black hood more or less fills the frame you do need to think more about exposure than the time allowed, as auto systems increase the exposure to make it mid-grey. Then there was the problem of just how transparent you want those black hoods to appear – and Lightroom does sometimes make it possible to show rather more than could actually be seen.
Anonymous ‘V for Vendetta’ Guy Fawkes mask inside a black hood
I also wanted to make clear exactly where the protest was held, and for most of the pictures chose to include either Nelson up there on his column, or the fairly recognisable portico of the National Gallery. And yes, quite a few of my pictures I did reject because they had photographers or parts of them in the wrong place – at times it just was not possible to avoid them when taking the pictures.
As I’ve remarked before, I’ve photographed quite a few events related to the illegal detention of prisoners at Guantanamo, and for some of these I have been either the only photographer taking pictures or one of a small group. Unlike most photographers, I almost always get my stories and pictures published somewhere, even if I have to do it myself here or on My London Diary. It’s a shame that few of them make the mass media, but even my own sites have a larger readership than many small publications. I started My London Diary in part because so much that was happening in London, and protests in particular, were ignored by the conventional media.
The focus of the rally was a call for the release of Shaker Aamer, held initially in Bagram and then at Guantanamo, imprisoned without trial and tortured repeatedly. He was cleared for release by the US military in 2007, and by Obamas administration in 2009 but somehow remains held there, probably because of the embarrassment his testimony after release would cause to the US. A London resident who went to Afghanistan as a humanitarian worker, he has a British wife and four children, including a son aged 10 who he has never seen who live in Battersea, south London. There are grave concerns for his physical and mental health.
The protest also called for the Algerian detainee Ahmed Belbacha, who lived in Bournemouth from 1999 to 2001, shortly before his detention, to be allowed to return to the UK. He was also cleared for release by the US military in 2007 but cannot be released to Algeria because the threat to his life.
My story and pictures in Shut Guantánamo: End 10 Years of Shame on My London Diary.
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