I’ve never had to have a great deal to do with probation officers, though I’m sure they do a very useful job, and also sure that the plans by Justice Minister Chris Grayling to sell off 70% of the service this year will result in a considerable deterioration – as well as handing private companies around £700 million a year worth of business. Doubtless many of those picking up the contracts will have links to various politicians, largely but not entirely in the Conservative Party.
It’s long been time for our opposition to have a rather tougher policy over privatisation – and particularly over the reversal of privatisation. In this case the Labour Party have asked that the contracts be written so they can be cancelled by a new government without huge financial penalties, but perhaps they should be thinking of bringing in legislation to put the reversal of privatisation on a more even basis to the selling off.
But I was there to take pictures, not to tell the Labour Party what to do. I didn’t really find anything really interesting at the rally, though there were several nice placards and posters, and a few faces that attracted the attenti0n of several of the photographers present.
Perhaps one problem is that ‘NAPO‘ always seems a rather ugly name to me, though I’m not quite sure why; perhaps it’s too close to nappy, though the other suggestion that comes up as I type it in on Google is ‘Napoleon. But I’m rather surprised they didn’t change it to something more pleasing when they decided the National Association of Probation Officers was too much of a mouthful.
Or perhaps I just wasn’t in the right mood after the previous couple of events I’d photographed. The lighting was a little tricky, with a low sun often shining into my lens. Some pictures I used fill flash, and others I had it turned off, and the Nikon SB800 seemed to be having one of its unpredictable days. I lost a few pictures where the flash had completely overexposed the image
Fill-flash was essential with a very deep shadow from this woman’s hands on her face
I did put the flash into the hot shoe and turn it on, but there were some of the audience where either I wasn’t using it or had turned it too low. One of the problems of working with two cameras and one flash unit is that it is often on the wrong camera. If you wait while you move it, the picture often disappears.
Things got rather more interesting later outside the Ministry of Justice, where after a few pictures of people standing with banners outside the entrance I wandered off towards the birthday cake which I thought would be important in the next part of the event. That was a little premature, but I did find I was standing next to the PA system, which seemed to be a good place to be.
At 58mm (87mm equiv)
And so it proved, when singer/songwriter Tom Robinson was introduced to lead the singing of the special verions of ‘Happy Birthday’ for Grayling, and then to open the presents for him, which included a book, ‘The Book Thief’ for the man who had just announced that prisoners in UK jails would not be allowed to be sent books from outside prison.
At 17mm
For once I was pretty well in the right place to take photographs – and without a crowd of other photographers pressing on either side. The crowd of protesters was simply too closely around and behind me for other photographers to approach. A few like me had followed what was happening enough to be around, but had chosen other positions where they had less good a view. This time I’d been lucky and had taken a lot of pictures, both with the 16-35mm on the D700 and the tighter head shots with the 18-105mm on the D800E.
The 16-35mm also came in useful when the cake was being carried in to the Justice Ministry, though I was disappointed on this occasion to be stopped by security as I tried to follow it in. They had obviously learnt from our previous visit on a legal aid protest in March – Outraged Lawyers Legal Aid Protest.
More pictures in Probation Officers Strike for Justice.
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My London Diary : Buildings of London : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage
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