Although I’ve not been to the Ukraine, I did photograph Ukrainians in London holding a protest and a remembrance service for those killed in the protests.
I’d been told that they would be marching from a cultural centre in Notting Hill a few hundred yards from the Russian Embassy, but when I approached at the time for the protest, the street was empty. I thought that perhaps I had missed them, and a man came up to me, obviously going to the protest asked for directions to the Russian embassy. He spoke very little English, (and I zero Ukrainian) but I gathered – wrongly as it turned out – that the march had already left, so I hurried towards the embassy too.
Not that you can actually protest at the embassy, which is at the other end of the still guarded private street which also houses the Israeli embassy. As there, protests are on the other side of the main road close to the street opening. Though at least here there is a building with a Russian flag – the consulate – actually opposite behind a tall fence.
There were a few Ukrainians already there, along with another small group of Syrians and Syrian Peace Protest supporters, several of whom I recognised. Having greeted them, I went to talk to the Ukrainians, and found that the march had not arrived. I took a few pictures and then decided to go and look for it, meeting it a couple of hundred yards down the street. I think there had been a last-minute change of plan, and they had started from elsewhere.
There were still nothing like as many as I had been told to expect, but slowly more arrived and the protest grew. Many wore or carried Ukrainian flags and there were enough placards to make it clear what the protest was about, although not all were in English. A few protesters carried flowers, and some came with candles. Fortunately they got on well with the Syrians, joining together as both protested against Russian interference in their countries.
One image I saw in my viewfinder did give me something of a shock. It wasn’t quite the picture below, but a slightly wider view of the same person.
The woman was holding a bunch of daffodils with a blue ribbon tied around them in her left hand, which also held one corner of a Ukrainian flag. With her right she grasped another corner of the flag, and what seemed be a large knife. It was only on looking more closely I realised it was in fact only an unlit black candle, outlined against the white of a placard behind. Framing more tightly as above made the wick more visible, and moving it away from the text on the placard cuts down the illusion a little too, but there is still something slightly chilling, at least for me. The angle of the candle (or blade) and the intense expression remain powerful.
The plans changed again. It had been intended to march to the Ukrainian embassy a short distance away, and then on to the statue of St Volodomyr a short distance away on Holland Park Avenue. I’d called in there on my way to the protest and took a few pictures as it was surrounded by candles and a few photographs of those killed in the protests. But they had decided there wasn’t time for the embassy visit, and, after singing their national anthem, hands held on hearts, they set off for there.
At St Volodymyr, things were pretty crowded, with Ukrainians adding and lighting candles and adding more photographs of the dead to the display. Many of the candles in the jars had gone out and needed re-lighting. It was a pretty cramped area, and with quite a few photographers trying to get pictures, things were a little difficult. As usual I was working mainly with wide-angles, both the wide end of the 16-35mm and the wider still 16mm full-frame fisheye. Inevitably along with the Ukrainians and the candles there were also other photographers in the image. It’s something I usually try to avoid unless I want to make a point of it; usually photographers are there to record the event not to be it.
I make a point of dressing in fairly dull clothes when covering events. Dark blues, dull russets, greys, blacks. I don’t have a great deal of bright saturated colour clothing in any case, but I don’t wear it when I go out to take pictures. There are times and places where high-viz is essential, but this certainly wasn’t one of them, and I found myself cursing a photographer who had chosen to wear a bright red wool hat, though not to his face.
But it did really spoil a number of my pictures. And it led me commit at least a minor photographic sin. That hat the photographer close to the centre of the image was wearing was really about the same colour but rather brighter than the one the woman on the left below was wearing. I’ve not removed anything, but I think applied excessive burning in and a little desaturation, probably beyond what Reuters would approve of. I shouldn’t have done it, but it really was a sore thumb, and I succumbed to temptation on this one frame.
I’d actually taken off my hat in any case. It was decidedly warm for February but it was also something of a religious reflex. In the tradition in which I was raised, at a time when men almost all wore hats or more often caps, but always removed them when entering church – or indeed for open air services such as was being prepared for here.
I don’t know whether this is a part of Ukrainian Orthodoxy as well, but I did notice that all of the men in the large congregation gathered around the statue were bare-headed. But perhaps our English winters are too mild to merit any head-covering.
But during the ceremony itself there were another couple of photographers whose behaviour was I felt unsuitable, really intruding on what was happening, moving around and rather getting in the way. I felt a more reverent attitude was appropriate. I feel it is a privilege to be allowed to photograph events such as these, and holding a camera isn’t a licence for bad behaviour.
Story and more pictures: Ukrainians Protest, Celebrate and Mourn
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My London Diary : Buildings of London : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage
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