>Re:PHOTO Peter Marshall - Thoughts on Photography

12 Days of Christmas – July

12 Days of Christmas -some of my favourite pictures from those I made in July 2025.

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12 Days of Christmas – June

12 Days of Christmas -some of my favourite pictures from those I made in June 2025.

Billionaires Kill - 12 Days of Christmas – June — London, UK. Billionaires Kill. Several thousand march from the BBC to Whitehall against the government spending more on arms while cutting public services, the NHS and benefits for the disabled – they say is a blueprint for arms manufacturers to print money based on a false narrative. They demand Welfare not Warfare and call for taxes on the rich, cutting down tax avoidance and evasion and an end to cuts. Peter Marshall

London, UK. 21 June 2025. Starmer – what a joke. Many thousands including many Jews march to Whitehall calling an end to the war crime of deliberate starvation of Palestinians in Gaza and demanding a ceasefire there and in the war against Iran. The want action to end the genocide and murder of children. They demand the UK ends all arms sales to Israel and call for a ceasefire and negotiations on both Palestine and Iran with the release of all hostages and prisoners. Peter Marshall.

London, UK, 28 June 2025. People march from Islington Green to a rally at Highbury Fields to demand Barclays end funding which supports Israeli genocide in Gaza and continuing apartheid in Palestine as well as environmental destruction by fossil fuel use. Barclays underwrites Israeli ‘was bonds’ and provides billions to support illegal settlements and arms sales to Israel, Palestine Solidarity Campaign was joined by others including CAAT, London Mining Network. Peter Marshall.

London, UK. 28 June 2025. Unite Against Fascism held a rally in Whitehall against the cynical attempt by the far right Football Lads Alliance to spread racism and bigotry on the streets of London by a march and rally “against grooming gangs, knife crime and the sexualisation of children” despite many on the far right having been convicted as sex offenders against children. Police kept the two rallies several hundred yards apart. Peter Marshall.

More pictures from July 2025 tomorrow,

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12 Days of Christmas – May

12 Days of Christmas -some of my favourite pictures from those I made in May.

More of my favourite pictures from June 2025 tomorrow.

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12 Days of Christmas – April

12 Days of Christmas -some of my favourite pictures from those I made in April 2025.

London, UK. 26 April 2025. Luke Watson photo, Hundreds of Just Stop Oil supporters came to St James Park for a final march to celebrate the success of their civil resistance and to protest the draconian sentences being served by many of those involved in their peaceful protests, with others still awaiting trial. They marched around Parliament Square, many holding photographs of the ‘political prisoners’ before marching to a rally at the law courts. Peter Marshall

London, UK. 26 April 2025. Hundreds of farmers, growers, foresters and land-based workers in The Landworkers’ Alliance march behind a tractor from a rally in Vauxhall to the Home Office to call for systemic change in our food system. They want a legal right to nutritous ecologically produced food for all and a national strategy to prioritise healthy food production and give fair incomes for land workers, including seasonal migrant workers who currently are illegally exploited. Peter Marshall

More images from May 2025 tomorrow.

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12 Days of Christmas – March

12 Days of Christmas -some of my favourite pictures from those I made in March 2025.

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12 Days of Christmas – February

Some of my favourite pictures from those I made in February 2025:

London, UK. 1 Feb 2025. Anti-fascists in London oppose the protest by supporters of racist Tommy Robinson against his imprisonment for contempt of court. It comes shortly after Donald Trump took over as US President with Elon Musk making a Nazi salute, extreme right parties on the rise in Europe, and Farage claiming Reform UK has over 180,000 members. The London march says fascists are not welcome on our streets and is against all forms of racism including antisemitism and Islamophobia. Peter Marshall

12 Days of Christmas – January

Some of my favourite pictures from those I made in January 2025:

12 Days of Christmas, TRUMP CLIMATE CATATROSPHE, Imperialism, Hands of COngo, — London, UK. 11 Jan 2025. TRUMP CLIMATE CATATROSPHE. US Embassy protest called by Campaign against Climate Change rejects Trumps climate denial and demands urgent action as world reaches 1.5 degree man-made temperature rise and climate disasters occur around the world. Trump has said he will pull the US out of the Paris agreement and his example will embolden climate deniers around the world, threatening homes, livelihoods and lives of billions, particularly in the poorest countries which have done least to cause our climate chaos. Peter Marshall

12 Days of Christmas, Police harass holocaust survivors in Whitehall — London, UK. 18 Jan 2025. Police harass a group of holocaust survivors and familes, making the move further up Whitehall. After police had banned their march from the BBC on spurious political grounds the march organisers decided to hold a rally in Whitehall. Speakers and marchers welcomed the current ceasefire agreement but continued to call for a permanent end to the genocide, an end to arms sales to Israel, for the release of all hostages and prisoners, for urgent humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza and for peace with justice for Palestinians. Over a thousand police surrounded and harassed the protesters to prevent them marching. Peter Marshall

12 Days of Christmas, Police take protesters carrying bunches of flowere through line and then arrest them — London, UK. 18 Jan 2025. After police had banned their march from the BBC on spurious political grounds the march organisers decided to hold a rally in Whitehall. Speakers and marchers welcomed the current ceasefire agreement but continued to call for a permanent end to the genocide, an end to arms sales to Israel, for the release of all hostages and prisoners, for urgent humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza and for peace with justice for Palestinians. Over a thousand police surrounded and harassed the protesters to prevent them marching but sherperded the front few rows through the of marchers through the police line into Trafalgar Square, where they were arrested.

London, UK. 29 Jan 2025. Bus Drivers marched from Victoria to Parliament accompanied by Caroline Russell, AM.. They call for proper rest breaks to avoid fatigue that leads to mistakes – in the last 10 years 80 people have died in collisions involving buses. They demand clean, serviced toilet and rest facilities on all bus routes and for proper heating and air conditioning in cabs. Peter Marshall/Alamy Live News

London, UK. 29 Jan 2025. Members of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a civil, volunteer-based organisation focused on the safe return of all Israeli citizens held hostage by the terrorist organization Hamas, stood in silence facing Downing Street holding up photographs of those still held in Gaza. There message was simple ‘Bring them home now – by any means necessary’. Peter Marshall

London, UK. 29 Jan 2025. Teachers from non-academy sixth form colleges on strike against a two-tier pay system which would mean them getting paid 2% less than colleagues in academies came to a National Education Union rally at parliament against this obvious injustice, demanding equal pay. Sicth form colleges receive 22% less funding than secondary schools. Two further strike days are planned next month. *Peter Marshall*

London, UK 30 Jan 2025. A large crowd at the law courts in Strand support 16 climate activists – JSO16 – appealing their jail sentences for standing up for our planet’s future. Judges prevented juries from hearing the reasons they acted. At first people stood on the pavement with placards but soon hundreds marched in carrying posters with captions and large pictures of political prisoners and sat down blocking the road as an exhibition. Police warned them they might be arrested. Peter Marshall

London, UK 30 Jan 2025. People remember the 53rd anniversary of Bloody Sunday when British soldiers opened fire on a peaceful protest march in Derry against internment without trial, killing 26 unarmed civilians. The vigil in Parliament Square organised by the Terence MacSwiney Committee called for justice. Speakers including several MPs linked the killing with other conflicts caused by British imperialism including the current genocide in Palestine, expressing support for the Palestinian people. Peter Marshall

Tommorow some of my pictures from February.

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Christmas Walks. For many years we have had a family get-together on Boxing Day and we will do the same today, but it will be a little different as for the first time for many years we will not be walking the five or six miles to it.

Staines to Runnymede Walk

We always needed that walk to work up enough appetite for a large meal in the middle of the day after a little overindulgence on Christmas Day. I’ve posted some pictures from our Boxing Day walks here in previous years, But as we got a little older they became simply a matter of the shortest route- a pleasant stroll along the Thames Path rather than any of the slightly longer and hillier variations that use to add interest.

And in late 2023 the Environment Agency found an unsafe 90 year old footbridge across a small creek close to Runnymede Bridge and fenced of this short section of the Thames Path in February 2024. Almost two years later it remains fenced off with work yet to start. The diversion isn’t a great deal longer but makes the walk less interesting.

We’d also go out on at least one walk between Boxing Day and New Year’s Day on a longer walk with whichever of our family were staying with us. But now our house seems to have shrunk as our children’s families have grown and we go away to stay with or near them. But I think we will still make some walks.

In 2019 we made three walks between Christmas Day and the New Year and I posted about all three on My London Diary.

The first, our walk on Boxing Day 2019 from Staines to lunch in Old Windsor was cut a little short, not by the Environment Agency but by the weather. We made it roughly two-thirds of the way to the café at Runnymede when the heavens opened – and we rang to be collected.

Staines to Runnymede walk

Wimbledon to Richmond walk

The second walk, two days later, followed an invitation on the Christmas card from the father of my younger son’s wife to join a walk he was arranging from Wimbledon across the common and through Richmond Park. We hadn’t intended to go, but it was a fine day and we decided at the last minute to join them, though we had to leave before the lunch they had planned at the café in Richmond Park.

More at Wimbledon to Richmond

Matlock & Matlock Bath

The next day we took the trains to briefly visit my elder son and family in Milton Keynes and from there were driven up to Matlock by my younger son to stay with them for a couple of days. And the next day we walked what was described by one sensationalist article in a tabloid newspaper as the “most dangerous footpath in England” around the face of High Tor to Matlock Bath.

Of course it is no more dangerous than many other paths on cliffs around the country – and even has a handrail to hold on the narrowest section, as well as a short ‘one-way’ section to reduce the risk where passing others could be dangerous.

Matlock Bath is in parts tourist hell, full of fish and chips and ice cream shops, and a mecca for bikers, but it does have at least one decent pub – where we ate and went to look at some very large specimen fish before visiting the Mining Museum.

Coming out, I and my younger son started to climb up the hill on the west side of the valley while the rest of our party decided to take the short train journey back to Matlock. The climb of the valley was steep and exhausting, but once we had reached the top it was fairly easy going, with more great views at times of the Derwent valley as the light was beginning to fade.

By the time we reached Matlock I was thinking I should have taken the train.

Matlock & Matlock Bath

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Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas 2025

London, UK. 8 Mar 2025. Women, including many from migrant groups, marched along Oxford Street and on to a rally in Trafalgar Square for Million Women Rise, a woman-only march on International Women’s Day. Men supporters were only allowed on the pavement. The march called for an end to male violence against women and girls in all its forms and to everyday and structural racism at the heart of policing and our immigration system and society generally. Peter Marshall

London, UK. 22 March 2025. ‘Crips Against Cuts’ protesters, many in wheelchairs, hold a day of action around the country after the Labour government announced cuts in benefits, severely reducing the number of people being paid PIP to cut billions. They say PIP is already stringently tested and restricted to those who truly need it and it enables many to make a contribution to society. Benefit fraud is minimal and Labour should instead clamp down on tax evaders and introduce stricter tax rules to cut avoidance. Peter Marshall

Merry Christmas

A few weeks ago i looked through the all of the pictures I had taken this year – or as least all those I had selected to put into my Lightroom catalogue – this almost 25.000 was probably rather less than half of the actual exposures made as I cull out many I don’t find of some interest and choose only the best of similar images. These are are the two pictures I printed and gave to a few close friends, now online with my Christmas Greetings too all on social media.

It was a long process – and made rather longer by my falling asleep a few times working late at night so I’m not sure I saw every one of them. At first I selected around 30 or 40 pictures, then cut these down to a final two.I wasn’t looking for my ‘best pictures of the year’ but ones that might be usalble as Christmas Cards,

Most of my pictures this year were of pro-Palestine protests which our politicians have stigmatised as ‘Hate marches’ and anti-Semitic. Quite clearly they are neither, with many Jewish protesters taking part, including including a few survivors of the holocaust and rather more of their sons and daughters.

The mass media have largely give us a very misleading view of the marches, which are against not Jews but the policies of an Israeli state which as widely been accused of genocide, killing large numbers of women and children as well as men with little or no connection to Hamas, bombing schools, hospitals and refugee camps preventing medical and other urgently needed supplies from crossing the border.

What hate I have seen has come from largely from those small groups of Zionists and others who have opposed these marches. I think all or almost all the Jewish people I know are opposed to Netanyahu, some seeing his relentless killing of Palestinians as a desperate attempt to cling to power and avoid prosecution.

But in the end I didn’t chose an image from the Palestine protests, but one from the March 8th women’s march, and the second from a March 22nd protest by disable people in fear that a Labour government will drastically cut the Personal Independence Payment, PIP.

DLR – Connaught Rd & Bow Creek 1994

DLR – Connaught Rd & Bow Creek 1994. Continuing my panoramic images made along the path of the DLR in July 1994.

DLR, near Connaught Bridge, Custom House, Newham, 1994, 94-721-33 — *DLR, Connaught Rd, Custom House, Newham, 1994, 94-721-33*

The road layout in this area has changed completely since 1994, but you can see at right the DLR Beckton branch going over the concrete lead-up to the Connaught Bridge. I think GATE 30 at extreme left is to the Excel site and the Connaught Tavern is hidden by the trees in the centre of the picture – and so this road was the old Connaught Road which led to the old swing bridge. I think where I was standing is now the middle of a hotel car park.

*Bridges, Bow Creek, East India Dock Rd, East India, Tower Hamlets, Newham, 1994, 94-719-61*

I moved around a mile and a half west and four stops along the DLR line to Canning Town and one of my favourite areas around Bow Creek, which here does two more or less 180 degree turns before flowing into the Thames. These two ‘bridges’ are a few yards south of East India Dock Road and I think both were built as pipe bridges to carry gas across the river.

Only the brick end supports of first remain on each bank. The metal bridge in the centre of the image is also a footbridge, now painted blue and leading across the river to the ecology park. Just beyond it, almost completely hidden is a third bridge, a long disused rail bridge. At left are the sheds of a timber yard.

*DLR, Bow Creek, Wharfside Rd, Canning Town, Tower Hamlets, Newham, 1994, 94-719-52*

Further East on the East India Dock Road I made this panorama with a sawmill in Wharfdale Road. Beyond that road is a train on the DLR line, and over the top of this you can see the Pura Foods factory on the site where London City Island now is.

*DLR, Bow Creek, Wharfside Rd, Canning Town, Tower Hamlets, Newham, 1994, 94-720-31*

A few yards further east on East India Dock Road gave this view of Bow Creek, curving 180 degrees around Pura Foods. Locals were pleased to see this London City Island factory go as you could smell it across much of Canning Town.

*DLR, Bow Creek, Wharfside Rd, Canning Town, Tower Hamlets, Newham, 1994, 94-720-32*

And a similar view but including a DLR train.

*DLR, Bow Creek, Wharfside Rd, Canning Town, Tower Hamlets, Newham, 1994, 94-720-23*

A few yards away I used a crane to frame the image of Pura Foods on its not quite island site. At right of the picture is a bridge across the DLR leading to a riverside walk to Canning Town Station. Although I managed to walk across Reuben’s Bridge several times, it has been mainly locked for the last thirty years, despite being a useful short cut to the riverside station entrance.

Apparently it was closed because people were throwing stones from it onto the DLR, and more recently in 2019 a survey determined that it is non-compliant with current Health & Safety Legislation, Building Regulations, British Standards and associated supplementary guidance.

The initial plans were for the riverside walkway to lead all the way to Trinity Buoy Wharf at the mouth of Bow Creek – and a competition was held and awarded for a new footbridge to enable this – but then the plans were dropped. Until a new bridge was built for London City Island the riverside entrance to Canning Town station only led to two dead ends.

More to come.

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