Like most people – or rather everyone I’ve talked to about it – I was appalled at the shooting of Trayvon Martin, a teenager going home from his local shop after buying a soft drink and some sweets, shot by a white man who claimed he felt threatened by this young black in a hoodie, apparently sufficient justification to get away with murder under Florida law.
Although this was clearly a crime committed because the victim was black, it surprised me that the protest at the US Embassy did not attract much wider support from the left in the UK. Not only were the great majority of those at the protest black, but even most of the photographers I met there were. The SWP had as almost always produced a placard – this one reading ‘No Justice No Peace‘ and a few members were present with a bookstall but otherwise there was relatively little evidence of solidarity.
Trayvon was killed in Florida, but the racism which led to his death is active here, and as recent events have brought again to public attention, very much present in our police force. As I noted in my post Protest for Trayvon Martin on Demotix and My London Diary, the speakers at the event were introduced by “Merlin Emmanuel, brother of Smiley Culture, killed by police in his own kitchen, and speakers included Marcia, the brother of Sean Rigg, murdered in Brixton Police Station.”
The picture above is not the most flattering I’ve taken of Marcia Rigg on the various occasions I’ve met her since her brother’s murder, but the angle and framing were carefully chosen to include the American eagle and flag flying on top of the embassy building. And it was intended not to flatter but to show something of her righteous anger at both the killing of her brother and the deception and lies the family have met with from police, IPCC and CPS in trying to find the truth of what happened in Brixton Police Station and to get justice.
Flags very seldom fly out straight in London’s unpredictable breezes and it took quite a few attempts to get this how I wanted it, working at around 90mm equivalent using the 18-105mm on the D300 in very overcast light. A little flash helped to keep a sensible tonality in her face, though I had to bring it out more in post-processing – adding a little brightness and contrast in some areas and burning down the flare from the brighter sky on her forehead. The sky and the flag also needed burning in.
The picture was taken nominally at ISO1250 but with one stop of underexposure – so really ISO 600 – and stopped down to f ll to get the background fairly sharp, and this gave me a shutter speed of 1/320. Both my Nikon flashes are waiting for me to take them in to see if they can be fixed, and this was taken using a cheap Nissin unit, which I don’t find gives as reliable exposure. Looking at the results from this and the other events during the day made me order a Nikon SB700. It seemed a bargain (though I think six times what I paid for the Nissin) compared to the larger, heavier, considerably more expensive and only slightly more powerful SB910.
People had been asked to come to the protest wearing hoodies and to bring packets of the sweets Trayvon had bought – Skittles – and bottles of the soft drink, and there were many opportunities to take people posing with these. I don’t like posed pictures, but I did take rather a lot of them at this event, and a few made it to the web pages at Protest for Trayvon Martin on My London Diary. The one above at least shows a certain spontaneity, as well as featuring the two joint chairs of BARAC, Black Activists Rising Against Cuts, Lee Jasper and Zita Holbourne.
________________________________________________________
My London Diary : Buildings of London : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage
All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated are by Peter Marshall and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.
To order prints or reproduce images
________________________________________________________