It would be hard to think of a cause more lost than Tibetan Freedom. Though perhaps in the fullness of time China will change and evolve and gain the self-confidence to allow some re-establishment of Tibetan culture in the Tibetan homeland, unlikely though it seems at the present moment. Certainly the continuing annual Freedom March demonstrates the great resilience of the TIbetan people – as does also the continuing protests in Tibet despite the Chinese oppression. Tibet is often quoted as having a climate that makes it one of the harshest places for human existence, which has doubtless formed the character of the Tibetan people.
The main attraction of the event for me is in the faces of the Tibetan men and women at the event, and the bright red,blue and yellow of the Tibetan freedom flag I find can be something of a distraction. You can definitely have too much colour in a photograph.
So although there are plenty of those flags in my pictures, I try not to let them dominate, and find ways to put them in the background. Text is always something that grabs attention, and it’s important that it works with the image and not against it. Obviously the ‘SAVE TIBET’ headband is central to the image above, but also I moved slightly and carefully framed the deliberately out of focus word ‘FREEDOM’ in the background. This is a picture of a man thinking, with the deliberate choice of the eyes looking down. I don’t know what he was actually thinking about, but I think the picture leaves little doubt in most viewers minds about what I intended to convey he was thinking of. Though perhaps I don’t usually like to direct the audience quite so clearly.
So my favourite image from the event was quite different, and made at 16mm on the 16-35mm with the D700. It is cropped a bit, as I had to hold my left hand slightly into the frame at top right to block the sun (that’s also a tiny triangle of my sleeve remaining at top left.) Apart from the crop, quite considerable burning down highlights and bringing up of some shadow areas was needed to produce the image here.
I think the larger ‘animal’ is a man dressed as a Tibetan yak (our name for the animal comes from the Tibetan for a bull yak) and this bull is pretending to bully the rather smaller and real Scottie dog in the foreground, while around it people are watching, including one holding a banner ‘China Stop Bullying Innocent People’. I and other photographers took quite a few pictures of this confrontation, though I’m quite not sure what to make of it politically!
There are four of my other pictures of the incident in London March for Freedom for Tibet, but I think this is perhaps the best, though it wasn’t the one I chose on first seeing the series. Partly I prefer it becuase of the attitudes of the two ‘animals’, but also because I’ve managed to exclude most of another photographer on the left (you can see her elbow and knees but not her camera) and the way the bull’s horns point into the poster. And there is something about the man at the right with his arms across his chest.
I had to leave the march shortly after it started, and had hoped I might meet up with them again later as the reached the Chinese Embassy, but other things interfered. The light was very difficult as the marchers went north up Whitehall with a low sun directly behind them, but as so often difficulties can make images more interesting.
London March for Freedom for Tibet
You can also see some of my pictures from previous Tibetan Freedom Marches in London:
Free Tibet march, 10 March 2001
2000 2002 2003 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
(I missed the 2004 and 2013 marches and there is only the picture above from 2001 on line, and none of the colour I took in the first three years.)
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My London Diary : Buildings of London : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage
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