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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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.
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