Sunday I was a demonstrator with a camera rather than a reporter, going with a coachload of others from a church a few miles away to Birmingham. Ten years ago I’d made a similar journey to form a human chain around the conference centre where heads of government from around the world were meeting; I think the 70,000 of us were the first major demonstration at a G8 meeting, and we put Debt Relief very firmly on the political agenda.
Methodists from Worcester caught in the chains of debt, Birmingham, 2008
Digital showed its strength again, when we went into the rally in the same conference centre that the G8 had used. The lighting in the hall wasn’t bright, but I was still able to take some nice sharp images with the 20mm from my seat, although it was a pity that the 18-200mm VR lens had jammed the previous day. The picture below, taken without VR, was at 1/125th on a Sigma 55-200mm lens at 200mm (300mm equiv) full aperture, ISO 1600, and is sharp and relatively noise-free.
Ann Pettifor (Advocacy International and Operation Noah, previously of Jubilee 2000)
It was a long day – but interesting, although the final demonstration proved a bit of a challenge – a human pie chart to illustrate that 20% of debt has been dropped but 80% still remains. Here’s my best effort.
