I was pleased with this image, taken at a protest outside the London HQ offices of security firm G4S – you can see the others from the set I made at Support Hunger Strike in Israeli Jails. There have been regular protests outside the offices on Victoria St, and it was difficult to think of some different way to show them, having covered quite a few.
I’m just slightly annoyed that I wasn’t working with the zoom lens just a little wider – it would have been good to have the word ‘TORTURED’ under the pictures of the boys from Hares – the ‘Five Palestinian Children’ who have been held in solitary confinement in small empty underground cells in a prison where G4S provides their support.
It was a cool, dull and slightly wet afternoon, and the tall buildings along the street channel the wind, turning the area of pavement where the protest was held into a wind tunnel. I made some more general images of the protest, and there was no problem in getting the Palestinian flags flying.
But I decided to concentrate on people handing out leaflets, using the 70-300mm to zoom in on the actual leaflets in some images – like this:
So for the top image, I was at the widest focal length the lens goes – 70mm – and really would have liked it to be just a little wider. It would have been a little better if I had been working with the 18-105mm. The longer lens is fine for what it does, but very much less flexible than the 18-105mm.
The long lens worked for a number of images. I particularly liked a rather athletic pick-up of a leaflet by one man walking past – here is one of the two images of his. It’s an image I think I could improve by a little more post-processing to bring out more shadow detail; the pictures on My London Diary are usually from the fairly rapid editing that I do to get pictures to the agency within a few hours, and this was a very busy day. This story was my third of the day and I had to rush several miles across London after the half hour I spent there for another protest.
I’m only aware so far of one image from this set having been used, and it was this image of a man walking with his bike past the stall – and taking a leaflet from the woman at the right. This was taken with the 18-105 mm at 18mm. As with the other images, I tried to concentrate on the protesters, showing those taking the images either only as hands or arms or working from behind them.
More of my pictures from the event – and more information about the protest at Support Hunger Strike in Israeli Jails.
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My London Diary : Buildings of London : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage
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