Photo Reviews

Ignacio Evangelista is a Spanish photographer with a degree in Psychology whose work you can see on the Turn On Art web site in his 2013 project After Schengen which shows some of the border crossings in the EU that were abandoned in 1995 when the Schengen treaty brough free movement of people and goods across much of the EU.  It’s a nice idea, which got him the 2013 Project Development Grant from CENTER in New Mexico, though I can’t get very excited about the large format images as they are presented on screen – perhaps they look rather better for real.

But what brought me to Turn on Art was not his photography, but a feature written by Evangelista, Are photo reviews a good investment? in which he writes about the growing number of portfolio review events for photographers and proposes “to edit a guide based on Portfolio Reviewers, such as hotels or restaurants guides, with scores marked by coloured stars and users’ comments.” (Thanks to Alan Griffiths of Luminous Lint for bringing it to my attention on Facebook.)

The feature gives a good description of what these reviews are and of the costs and possible benefits they bring to photographers.  I’ve never attended one as a photographer, but back in the days when I wrote for a slightly more popular and influential web site than >Re:PHOTO (it had perhaps six times the readership here, though of course what matters is really quality!) I was invited to attend just one as a reviewer. You can read a whole series of posts about the event and some of the better photographers that brought there work to show me, starting with Rhubarb Rhubarb: Three Canons.

We reviewers certainly had a great time, and for a few of the photographers it was an important stepping-stone in their careers, with several exhibitions and at least a couple of books coming out of the event. But I was left wondering whether I would go to such an event – and from what I’ve heard this was one of the best – as a photographer.

Back in olden times, when I was beginning my active fascination with the medium there were no such things, but I did find it very helpful to show my work to other photographers and to talk with them about it. I went to a number of photographic workshops run by photographers who I admired, quite a few just days or afternoons, but some over a long weekend, where there would be sometimes very lengthy group crits, as well as often the opportunity to talk more over meals and at the pub. Most of them were relatively cheap events compared the the costs of attending a photo review, and in those days it was normal to just come along with a set of prints in an old Ilford box (and one of the most interesting of photographers who came to see me in Birmingham brought his 10×8 prints in an old Kodak box.)

There were also more informal events where photographers got together, and for some years I met monthly with a group of friends where we would bring our latest work, hot from the darkroom, to discuss, sometimes with a bluntness that you are unlikely to find at photo reviews. Among those who used to meet was Derek Ridgers, whose blog ‘The Ponytail Pontifications‘ gives a good idea of his style, though I think he has mellowed rather over the years (or perhaps fears legal action if he put some of his views in writing.) It wasn’t always an easy ride when you brought work, fools were sometimes not suffered gladly and some people never came a second time. Occasionally other better-known photographers would be invited along to show their work and to comment on ours, and we also organised a few shows, particularly under the title of ‘Framework’.

Groups a little like this still exist, including a number that I helped to start when I was on the committee of London Independent Photography, and I still occasionally attend one, although somehow it isn’t quite like the old days, when I think we were rather more inclined to call spades spades.

What both workshops and groups had in common where that the people who took part in them were all photographers. Sometimes well-known – I learnt a lot from meeting and showing my work to people like Raymond Moore, Paul Hill, John Blakemore, Lewis Baltz, Charles Harbutt, Fay Godwin, Ralph Gibson, Leonard Freed, Martin Parr and the others over the years, and from many who never became well-known.

Photo reviews are very different. Mostly those who review are not photographers (or at least not there as photographers) but those who have become the gatekeepers of our medium, running galleries, museum departments, photography festivals and photo reviews, publishing photo books and magazines and so on. I had been invited because I was then writing a photography blog and web site which was gaining a reputation around the world  – and around a million visits a month, mainly to read the fairly long weekly articles that I wrote about photographers or aspects of photography.

Some of those people are definitely very well informed on photography (though others are better informed on book-keeping), but I think that it is the opinions of photographers which should drive the medium. Sometimes the relationship between artists and curators etc can be symbiotic, but all too often it seems merely parasitic.

After getting the invitation and about 2 months before going to Rhubarb-Rhubarb, my long-running dispute with bosses over my determination to continue to write seriously about photography had come to a head, with the termination of my contract. (I wrote just a little about the problems at the time, for example here.) So to some extent I was there as a reviewer under false pretences, although I think I worked hard and gave good value, if not necessarily always pleasing the reviewees. And although my current sites don’t have quite the same visibility (or the backing of the New York Times), they – mainly >Re:PHOTO and My London Diary – are currently getting around 400,000 hits a month, almost now up to half the level the commercial site enjoyed. One big difference is that you had to struggle through the ads to see my stuff before, and of course little of what I put on line then was my own photography.  And of course those annoying ads then did more or less provide me with a living.

But back to photo reviews. Whereas the things we used to do were about developing ourselves as photographers, photo reviews are all about developing your careers.

Of course most of those attending – certainly in my experience – are not going to have much of a career in photography.  In most cases because there work lacks interest or novelty (more important these days.)  Just because a photographer is fascinated by staring at his/her navel does not mean the world will have any great interest in him/her. Some work is probably best kept to yourself, and I wish photographic education would give students a more realistic appraisal of their work, rather than rushing to sign up bodies to fill their courses. We are simply turning out far too many people with at least a certain technical facility (not that you need a great deal these days) but with little vision.

I saw some great photography at the review. It was easy to look at, to explore and to discuss with the photographers, who were keen to listen to what people thought. Others came along with work it was hard to find anything positive in, but were full of their own importance. There were some that I hardly had time to get a word in during our session together, they were so busy telling me how good their work was. Of course I tried to give them some guidance, but it wasn’t welcome. I imagine I got some fairly negative reviews from some of my reviewees, while some of the other reviewers who had suffered the same people told me they just sat there and nodded.

I’m sure photo reviews can be good at the right time for photographers. The right time is when you have good work too show and are prepared to listen to advice. You are then likely to get your money’s worth – and you just might be offered opportunities that would otherwise not come your way. Perhaps if such things had been around when  Vivian Maier was taking pictures and she had been able to afford to take her work there she might have got the odd publication or show, though I think we would have rather less hype about her work now!

Anyway, here is a little piece of advice I published on this site immediately after my experience as a reviewer to those who intend to take their work to such things. The third is a reference to the then current refuge of the apparently untalented and perhaps may by now have been replaced by something else that would get up my critical nose:

 Three Canons for Reviewees

  1. Be still, let your work speak and your reviewer think. Say only what is necessary.
  2. When making your pictures think for yourself; when preparing to present your work, think of your audience.
  3. Erase the word memory from your memory, your statements, your discourse. Let your work be memory, if so, then no one will need to be reminded.

 

 

Dyke March London 2013

Women applaud a speaker at the rally before the march

I wasn’t quite the only man present when I arrived to photograph the Dyke March – London’s second in recent years – which was starting in a corner of Berkeley Square, but almost, and I did feel just a little intimidated. Not that I had any real need to worry, everyone I talked to was fine, and it had in advance been made very clear that this wasn’t an all-women event – as the interesting FAQ on the event site states:

“There will be no policing of gender or sexuality on the march, least of all due to the diversity of dyke gender expression and presentation. In particular, we do not want any women to be challenged on their right to be at Dyke March – whether due to an androgynous, ambiguous, masculine or feminine (or other) presentation.

Because our focus is on dykes, we’re not actively seeking to involve men with the march, but they are welcome if they want to march with us (as are all supporters of dykes).”

In any case I was of course there not as any kind of dyke or even as a supporter of dykes but as a photographer and journalist. And I was welcome to take photographs, though just a few people turned away or hid their faces when I raised my camera, but this isn’t unusual at public protests, curious and illogical it may be.  I don’t really understand why I should have felt at all nervous (or any more nervous than I am at other events.) It really isn’t unusual for me now to walk into an event where I look or talk or dress different to everyone or nearly everyone present. But perhaps I was just a little shaken still after being pushed around a bit by the police (though not with any particular malice) at a previous event.

Of course I wasn’t quite dressed right for the situation, as you can see from the picture of one of the other photographers covering it. Though the dark waterproof jacket I had on was perhaps more practical for the twenty minutes or so of rain before the rally started. Even so, while it was at its heaviest I packed tightly into a doorway with half a dozen of so of the women.

In March 2012 I photographed the first Dyke March in London for over 20 years, and around 800 ‘dykes and their allies’ came. This year it was rather smaller, certainly at the start there were only around 200, although by the time I left it at Piccadilly Circus it had grown to around 300. Perhaps by the time it got to its destination of Soho Square it was larger still. Berkeley Square seemed a curious choice of a meeting place, as I’ve written ‘hidden away in the middle of Mayfair and about as far as it is possible to be from the tube in central London’. Last year too the event started later, and perhaps some who work on a Saturday were able to join it.

The web site welcomes as “all dykes, lesbians, bois, queers, andros, femmes, butches, inbetweenies, lipstick lesbians, leather dykes, dandies, drag kings, bisexuals, transwomen and their allies “to the march and although I couldn’t claim to identify all of these types, there certainly were some interesting looking people, and some of them appear in my pictures.

The Dyke March retains some of the atmosphere and spirit of the Pride marches of perhaps 20 years ago, before it became a parade. Organised by volunteers, it describes itself as “a grassroots, non-commercial, anti-racist, community-centred, accessible, inclusive event” all of which endears it to me. I was sorry to leave it as it went through Piccadilly Circus on its route to Soho Square, but by then I was tired and needed to get home.

The route was based on that taken by a Suffragette march – many of the leading suffragettes were lesbian or bisexual, although at the time this was generally not commented on in public, and certainly not in the press. But perhaps much of the strength of the movement came from the close bonds between many of the women involved.

More pictures at Dykes March, though I think I captured the event and the atmosphere better at the previous London Dyke March in 2012.
Continue reading Dyke March London 2013

Anarchists, Anonymous and ENA

Saturday was a bitty day for me. If I hadn’t been taking photographs I might have attended the People’s Assembly Against Austerity, although I wasn’t convinced it would be anything more than another talking shop with no real outcomes, and too many people defending the largely indefensible Labour Party. I don’t like photographing conferences, but I did go along and take a few pictures of the events around it, particularly at lunchtime when many of the few thousand attending came outside.


Some of the better known anarchist in the UK including Ian Bone at left

In fact there wasn’t a great deal happening. Anarchist blogger Ian Bone had called for a protest outside, but hadn’t managed to find more than a dozen or so people who could be bothered to come. Most of them spoke at a little rally, but they only arrived after most people had disappeared back into the conference sittings which were taking place inside Methodist Central Hall (MCH), and in a kind of tent outside and a hall around the corner to which any dissident voices – including Ken Loach – were exiled.


Two young men on a golfing pub crawl come to find out more
Occupy London people were also around, and visually rather more interesting than the anarchists, with Anonymous masks rather than cloth caps. There was a little vignette of farce when they net up with a couple of young men on a golfing pub crawl, but otherwise little to photograph.

Starting a quarter a mile down the road was a march by the English National Alliance, a small extreme right group – or ‘patriots’ as they prefer to call themselves. I’ve photographed their events before, and although I make clear I don’t share their views, I’ve tried to report them and the events clearly and accurately. I do so not just because of my ethical standards as a journalist, but because I think exposing their views and actions to the light makes clear to all what they stand for.

I walked up towards the meeting point and found a small group of photographers standing across the road looking at a few ENA protesters outside the pub. I asked if any of them had talked to the ENA, and no-one had, so I walked across the road towards them. I was warmly greeted and for the next ten minutes or so we talked and argued about what they felt was happening to our country and their feeling that they did not get a fair deal in the media. I doubt if they particularly liked what I wrote about the protest, but I think it was – as I assured them it would be – fair and accurate.


The left on the left and the right on the right – one in a brown jacket shouts and another gives a finger

There were only 11 of them – they had expected rather more, but eventually they decided not to wait and to carry out their march as planned. I think their decision to march directly in front of MCH where the People’s Assembly was being held was deliberately meant to provoke, and shouting – as some of them did – ‘No Surrender!’ seemed to be proof of that. A minute earlier, one of the younger protesters had boasted as we went along Tothill St that he wasn’t scared and that he could take on 25 of the ‘commies’. There were few people around outside the hall, mainly on several literature stall, and they heard the shouts and saw the ENA t-shirt worn by their leader and reacted, milling around and shouting ‘Racist Scum!’ and other similar insults, and shouting matches between the two groups ensued.


A woman on the ENA march points and shouts at a man who has called her a racist

I was surprised that the police had allowed them to turn down in front of MCH rather than continuing along the direct route. There were just not enough police present to keep the two groups apart, and I think it was an error of judgement to allow the ENA to proceed without further police reinforement – which did arrive after the trouble had started. But the situation would have been much easier to control had the ENA simply continued directly into Broad Sanctuary rather than confronting the leftists.


A woman police officer hold back an ENA protest while a leftist points and shouts at thim

There was quite a lot of pointing and one of the ENA giving the finger to the leftists and such like  but I didn’t see any  physical violence by any of the leftists, and the police pushed there way through them and kept pushing the ENA (and me) to keep them moving. The situation was pretty confused, but I did see one of the ENA trying to hit out at someone and being restrained by police. I was told one was arrested by police, though I don’t know for what offence and if he was charged. One of my photographer colleagues says she was hit by one of the ENA with his walking stick and came to ask me if I had got a picture of the assault, but I hadn’t seen it. My pictures show the left shouting but keeping back, and the police having to restrain some of the ENA, though mainly they were simply trying to keep them moving and get them away from the left.

It’s difficult to work and get decent pictures in situations like this, and I’m not too good at it. I was being pushed around, and was working at rather a low an ISO given the dull weather. At some point too, I got something on the camera filter which left a diffuse spot on the images – it wasn’t really visible in the viewfinder, but messes up many of the pictures. Possibly it was a finger mark when I was being pushed around. There was even a curious 10 seconds or so when everything I took was out of focus, despite using the 16-35mm on autofocus, and a camera setting which isn’t supposed to take a picture unless it has focussed.


The ENA leader was wearing an ENA t-shirt with the St George’s flag and carrying flowers for the Cenotaph

I wasn’t too happy with the pictures I had taken, although at times I’d been in the right place, I think at times I was too close, and hadn’t taken the time to look around and see what else was going on. I do tend to get too involved in keeping taking pictures when at times it would be better to stand back a little. But then you might miss the picture, and once quite a few other photographers had joined us at MCH, if you step back two other people step forward into the space you have vacated. I’d also decided most of the time to keep with the leader of the ENA, because he was the only one with distinctive clothing that would show in pictures – an ENA t-shirt with the St George’s flag – and because of the bunch of flowers he was carrying. But some of the younger ENA were probably more likely to get physically involved.

The police pushed the ENA past the first confrontation, but by now others were aware of what was happening, and a larger group came to meet them and shout at them in front of the QEII Conference Hall. Again police tried to keep the ENA moving, and finally managed to get them out onto Broad Sanctuary and to hold most of the left back, though a few followed them and continued to shout at them from a distance.

By the time the ENA march reached Whitehall it seemed to be down to seven or eight from the original eleven. There was a brief pause while the flowers were laid at the Cenotaph, then they continued to Downing St, where some were to go in to deliver a letter for the Prime Minister. Earlier outside the pub I’d been given a copy of that letter and was able to give a summary of its contents in my article.  It was very long and I felt rather confused and said so, and repeated most of what had already been said in their previous letter to David Cameron. I didn’t go into Downing St to photograph the letter being handed over because I was on my way to a final event for the day. But I don’t like Downing St. It’s a pain having to empty your pockets to go through the metal detector and to have your bag searched, and the opportunities for taking pictures are very limited. They had planned on a rally afterwards, but I think had decided there were not enough of them.

More pictures  at:
People’s Assembly
Action Not Talk?
Anonymous Occupy the Grass
ENA Meet Left Opposition

Continue reading Anarchists, Anonymous and ENA

Trade Union Turks Protest

The protest at the Turkish Embassy on Friday 21st was called by the London Taksim Solidarity Committee and the trade unions, including international trade unions and the TUC, and I think there was relatively little overlap between these protesters and those I had photographed the previous Sunday. As well as international unions including the  ITF (International Transport Workers’ Federation) and IUF (International Union of Food workers), there were also people from Unite, RMT, PCS, UCU and NUT at the protest, several of whom spoke, and the main attraction for the bunch of photographers present was Frances O’Grady, the TUC General Secretary.

I’ve photographed her a number of times, and unlike some other public figures she is always a pleasure to photograph, going out of her way to make sure photographers get their pictures. And the group of trade unionists and others going across the road with their arms linked to take a letter to the Turkish Embassy certainly made a good picture of solidarity. I’d watched (and photographed) them getting ready for it, but it wasn’t until they were halfway across the road that I got a clear picture of the whole line without anyone standing between me and them, and by then it seemed a little less dynamic, and as they got closer my frame was filled by other photographers running across in front of me to get close to the embassy door.

I moved back and slightly to the side. The second image is full frame and you can see one photographer’s foot at the extreme left, but I don’t think it was in the viewfinder and I wouldn’t normally hesitate to crop it out.  But I was in a rush to get the images on-line after the event and didn’t, nor as you can see did I get rid of the slight red cast that the Nikon autobalance has given the image.  O’Grady stands out in part as the only woman in the line of nine, but also because of the forward lean of her body, almost as if she is pulling the rest of them forward, and the white rectangle of the letter she is holding.

After this there were a few moments of confusion as the group unlinked arms; the police on duty decided that only one person should go up the steps to deliver the letter. And up she went, the press moving behind her to the bottom of the steps as she rang the bell.

I’d been about the first photographer on the spot and had chosen my position well (and with a little luck) looking at the door and the brass plate and where she would stand, but really it was her performance and the sheer delight she had in it that I think makes the image. Though it didn’t make the Turks inside come to the door! Which gave us plenty of time for some more pictures, and for her to play up to the cameras.

Of course public figures like her share a common interest with the press, but they don’t always seem to recognise this. I’m lucky not to want to photograph pop stars.

Of course there were others at the protest, and my favourite images came from some of the Turks from Halk Cephesi, variously translated as ‘Popular Front’ or ‘People’s Front’, though I’m not sure either gives the right impression in English.

This is one of several images that I particularly liked, I think here because of the almost symmetrical figure in the middle with arms over each other in front of his body. But the head disappearing into the red flags and apron at the left is important, and almost balanced by the third head in the image at right. It’s a nice touch to have some blue at both edges – and also the blue shirt of the central figure.  There are a couple more I rather like on My London Diary, along with other pictures that help to round out the story, TUC Support for Turkish Protests. There are some others of Frances O’Grady I like too.
Continue reading Trade Union Turks Protest

Colin O’Brien: Traveller Children


Colin O’Brien at the wall where he took the pictures in 1987

Yesterday I went to the launch party for Colin O’Brien‘s book, ‘Travellers’ Children in London Fields‘, the result of a chance encounter in 1987, when he was photographing a deserted warehouse on the edge of London Fields in Hackney.

A group of largely Irish travellers had parked their caravans here on the derelict streets. Back in those days kids would often come up to photographers on the streets and say ‘Take me picture Mister‘ whenever you photographed in areas like this, and in those days the main concern was the cost of the film. O’Brien realised the opportunity, got to know the families involved and gained their confidence, in part by giving them Polaroids of their kids, and over a period of around 3 weeks he went back and took more portraits, building up a great series of images of the children, largely posed images against a particular short stretch of the wall of a building. Then one day he went back and the caravans and children were gone and his project was at an end.

You can see some of these pictures on O’Brien’s web site – or at the Independent – along with much of his other work, but the book ‘Travellers’ Children in London Fields‘ ISBN 978-0-9576569-0-1 presents a good collection of them (you can get a signed copy from Spitalfields Life), where you can also see some fine images that there wasn’t space for in the book, as well as several other posts about this and other work by O’Brien, from his first pictures taken as a young boy outside his Clerkenwell home in 1948 with a box camera to recent work, a remarkable 65 years of photography.

The book is a fine start to Spitalfields Life Books as a publisher, and look forward to seeing further volumes from them. It’s a nicely designed small book edited by ‘The Gentle Author‘ of Spitalfields Life and printed locally at The Aldgate Press, and at the reasonable price of only £10.

The book launch was at the E5 Bakehouse in the arches underneath London Fields Station, only 50 yards from where the pictures were taken, and there were a number of the travellers who were photographed 26 years ago along with others from the family at the event. After we had finished the barrel of another local product, Trumans Beer (from the new Truman’s brewery in Hackney Wick), and Colin had made his speech, he led us the short walk to the wall where he had made these images.

I hadn’t gone to the event with the intention of taking photographs, but I seldom go further than the local shops without a camera, and I’d taken a few pictures on my way to the event. I wasn’t entirely happy with the performance of the Fuji X-E1, which didn’t always want to take pictures when I wanted it too, and despite some published reviews and tests, the image quality in relatively low light does not seem in the same league as the Nikons.

I’ll put some more images from the event into my photographic diary, My London Diary, in due course.

Continue reading Colin O’Brien: Traveller Children

Turkish Solidarity

Photographing the protest march which started at the Turkish Embassy on Sunday it was just a little difficult to know exactly who or what I was photographing, as my knowledge of the Turkish language is zero and of Turkish history and politics only slightly greater.  And I think it is important to understand the events that I’m photographing.

For some events I receive detailed press releases, but for others such as this, all I had was a brief listing in Facebook that gave the time and the place for meeting and that they would be marching to Downing St.

Before covering events I like to do a little research, making sure I know what the event is about, and of course the Istanbul Protests – Occupy Gezi had been in the news for some weeks, and the hashtag #direngeziparki had been trending on Twitter. So I knew the broad outline of what had been happening, and a little about leading figures including the Prime Minsiter Recep Tayyip Erdogan and about the foundation of the Turkish republic in the 1920s by Kemal Ataturk, and about Kemalism and something about the changes to the constitution made by Erdogan and the AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, in English, the Justice and Development Party – a truly Orwellian name.) I’d looked up such things again before photographing a previous Turkish protest the weekend before.

This protest turned out to be dominated by the TGB, the Youth Union of Turkey described on Wikipedia as “a Turkish left-wing nationalist revolutionary youth organization founded on 19 May 2006” with strong support in Turkish universities, which “claims it advocates the principles of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Kemalism” and to be “the pre-eminent representative youth organization of Turkey.”

Among the images on banners, posters, placards and framed photographs at the protest were of course those of Kemal Ataturk (some harder to recognise than others). Erdogan was there too, in a caricature of him as Hitler, and many of the protesters also wore small paper images of two men killed in the recent protests, with their names, Abdullah Cömert and Ethem Sarisülük.

Many of the placards were in Turkish, and although I could ask what they said in English, the answers I got were not always clear, and before sending off the pictures I did check some using Web translation services. I think ‘Satilmis medya’ means ‘the media have sold out’ and ‘AKP Istifa’ is ‘AKP Resign’.

As well as the images of Ataturk and Erdogan/Hitler there were of course plenty of Turkish flags, both waved by and worn by protesters and one on the embassy itself. I spent some time trying to take a picture showing the protest and the Embassy flag, and finally did produce one, but perhaps using the wrong lens – with the 16-35 at around 28mm the flag across the road is rather small.

Later, as the march went along two sides of Parliament Square I stood on the corner as it went past to show it passing Parliament – and in particular Big Ben, that so clichéd indicator of London. There were just a few yards after the march turned into Parliament St where this becomes possible.

You can see more of my work from this march at Turks continue fight on My LondonDiary.

Continue reading Turkish Solidarity

Human Meat

I hadn’t known what to expect when I turned up at Piccadilly Circus to photograph a protest calling for the closure of all slaughterhouses. I’m not a vegetarian and certainly not a vegan, though I’m very much against cruelty to animals, and on environmental grounds think that most people eat too much meat. At home we eat quite a lot of vegetarian food, but I still like to have a varied diet, and although the protest took place at lunchtime, and I was feeling a little hungry, I waited until I’d gone elsewhere before getting out my ham sandwiches!

I arrived more or less dead on time (oh dear), and for a few minutes it looked as if this was going to be a rather small and not too interesting protest.  But more people arrived, including a few that I knew, and one told me that if I was lucky there would soon be some scantily dressed women arriving. I wasn’t entirely sure if he was joking.

But soon I saw a woman sitting down on some large sheets of white card and removing her modelling gown to reveal she was dressed only in bra and pants.  Soon she was lying down and a man in a white suite labelled as a ‘Demon Butcher’ was dribbling fake blood over her before two others wrapped her in cling film and slapped on a large label with a bar code, ‘HUMAN MEAT’. Then a second woman was getting the same treatment.

I took quite a few pictures trying to work out the best approach. Getting in close and cropping the torso to use the white background;  taking the picture wider to show the pavement around, or including the protesters behind – and a few other variations – you can see some on ‘Human Meat’ – Close Slaughterhouses.

For a protest in the centre of London there were surprisingly few photographers, and even the many tourists around seemed a little shy about taking pictures.

The posters and placards you can see in the pictures certainly show some terrible scenes of animal cruelty, and they protesters say there is no such thing as humane slaughter and call the attitude that allows us to treat animals differently to humans ‘speciesist’. I can’t agree, because I do think we have a special relationship with others of our own species.  People do matter more than animals. But of course we shouldn’t be cruel to animals, although many animals are terribly cruel to other animals, killing them to eat in the only way that they know. We humans know better and should do better. If that’s ‘speciesist’ I’m proud to be so.

I enjoyed my ham sandwich on the bus on my way to the next protest. I hope the pig lived a decent life and was slaughtered humanely, though I can’t be sure. Though of course the pig only had a life because it was going to be eaten at the end of it.

Continue reading Human Meat

They Owe Us

I’ve photographed Canary Wharf on and off since the mid-1980s when the old West India docks were being demolished. On the ground during building the new area, and even  from the top looking down in the late 90s, when the office space in the tower was mainly still empty.


Canary Wharf station and Cabot Square

Since then I’ve been back various times, taken several photography workshops there as well as going to take pictures, and although I’ve got stopped a couple of times by security while taking pictures not really had a great deal of trouble.  I’ve photographed several protests there, most recently with the cleaners, and not been troubled by security while doing so.

So although I know people have had problems photographing on this huge private estate with its own security force impersonating police, I didn’t share the fears voiced by some that the ‘They Owe Us’  “creative civil disobedience”  there “in one of London’s economic power centres” was likely to end in trouble, though they were promising “an element of surprise that will be revealed on the day” though of course you can never be sure what will happen.

At least it was a nice bright sunny day, though rather windy, but perhaps the heavy-handed policing on Tuesday had put people off, and numbers were rather fewer than I’d expected.  Things eventually began to happen in the area in front of the tube entrance, with two adjacent areas with public address systems, one with some political speeches and performances, and the other more serious workshops and lectures, though visually neither was hugely interesting.

There were some seriously large banners, and in a creative area two large tripods were erected to fly the main banner – with the event’s title ‘They Owe Us’ – between.  Ultra-wide lenses were useful for these big banners, and in particular the 10.5mm fisheye let me not only show the banner but also in some pictures the tops of the high buildings to the south and north of the area.  The pictures with this seemed far more satisfying to me than those taken with longer lenses. With all those buildings with their rectangular arrays of window around almost all the fisheye images looked better after processing using the Fisheye-Hemi plugin,  which straightens the vertical lines (I’ve looked at alternatives to this, but it remains the best I’ve found.)

Of course not everything can be straight, and the sweep around of the paving slabs clearly shows this – and the buildings at left and right of the picture actually face each other.

A bit of tilt was needed to get the tops of the towers in the picture, and I was perhaps just a little too close for this picture – stepping back a few feet would have let me see more of the tripods, but I had to be more or less where I was to get the background ‘Power to the People’ banner in the image as well.

The two images above show the difference between a normal ultra-wide and the fisheye. The lower image was made with the 16-35 zoom at 23mm, about the widest for a rectilinear lens before the edge elongation becomes noticeable – the horizontal angle of view is a little over 75 degrees.  The upper image, taken from just very slightly to the left and a few second apart is almost half as wide again and gives a better impression both of the event and the surroundings.

But of course there are times when you do want to want to concentrate on a smaller part of the subject, and here is a third image taken a short time before the previous two. I was possibly just slightly closer, and moved down onto my knees to put the display of exchange rates and share prices which was travelling around the building behind the speaker.  The equivalent focal length using the 18-105mm DX lens was 120mm, and at f14 the rate is almost sharp – and you can count the speaker’s eyelashes, although theoretically diffraction is dragging the performance down a little it doesn’t seem to show on the original.

Finally, a reminder of what the protest was about. Canary Wharf, Pig Trough of the 1%, is in one of London’s most deprived boroughs, stolen from it and given over to the ultra-rich greedy pigs. In Tower Hamlets outside this private fiefdom, 1 in 4 children are living in poverty.  Getting balloons to point the right way on windy days wasn’t easy, as you can see in some of the other pictures on ‘They Owe Us’ G8 Protest on My London Diary.
Continue reading They Owe Us

Canada Day

Canada Day came to London a couple of weeks early. Although there are some celebrations taking place around Canada House as I write on July 1st, on 13 June we had not one but two protests against Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper taking place in Westminster.

It should be a matter of national shame that Harper was invited to address our Parliament when he came over on a lobbying mission to try to force Europe to take Canadian tar sands oil, the dirtiest of dirty fuels.  Producing a barrel of tar sands oil creates three to four times more climate pollution than producing conventional crude oil in Canada or USA, and the amount already approved by the Canadian government for extraction in Alberta is enough to push the planet past the 6 degree global warming catastrophe level. And on top of that there area huge direct environmental effects, as well as tragedies for the indigenous population of the areas being devastated.  Exploiting the tar sands presents a threat to the future of human existence that is hard to exaggerate and impossible to deny – all for the sake of short-term profits of the oil companies.

I didn’t find it an easy event to photograph, or perhaps I wasn’t at my best. I’d arrived a little late a few minutes after the event started which perhaps just didn’t help, and just  as I arrived a photographer had started organising the protesters for a group picture, which seldom helps me – but perhaps he was desperate for an idea too.

I didn’t actually take a photograph of the whole group, partly because I seldom if ever find such things interesting, but here a row of ugly flagpoles in front of it didn’t help. I did try going back, but then there were too many photographers and other people in the way. So I’ve got a few little bits of the protesters in front of Big Ben. One or two aren’t bad, and press photographers only want one, but I like things to be happening and some kind of story to tell.

Perhaps I was just having an off day, but there are some times when I never quite seem to settle and find a subject that really interests me visually. Perhaps I need to try harder. Or I should have got out the 10.5mm, which stayed firmly in my bag. There does seem to be something about looking through that which makes me see differently, and I think engages me more in events, even if I don’t always get good pictures with that lens.

I’d actually got there earlier – a few minutes before the start time – to find nobody around, and wandered a little around the area. I saw what appeared to be a protest a couple of hundred yards down the road and went to investigate.  These people didn’t look like your normal protesters.

They were members of Canada’s Foreign Service, members of the Professional Association of Foreign Service Workers, aggrieved because they get paid less than some others who they say do the same work.  Perhaps you get more if you are a spy? Spread out along the edge of College Green they were at least on the route that Harper came to Parliament. They told me they thought he would arrive very soon, and I hung around a few minutes before giving up and going back to the Tar Sands event – where by now I was just a little late.

By the time the Tar Sands protesters had decided to go, the daily shift for the Save Shaker Aamer campaign had arrived, and I spent a few minutes talking to and then photographing them.  Without great results, though I rather liked the red shoes of a woman walking past.

More pictures from all three protests:

Harper, we don’t want your dirty oil!
Canadian Foreign Service Protest
Shaker Aamer Daily Vigil Continues.

 

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My London Diary : Buildings of London : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated are by Peter Marshall and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

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Scaring Arms Dealers

The ‘Carnival Against Capital’ on June 11 had been just the first public event of a London week of action ahead of the G8 meetings in Ireland organised by the same ‘Stop G8’ coalition, and the heavy-handed police actions against it attracted criticism across much of the media. So although I went along to the Wednesday’s Anti-Militarist Action wondering if we would see more draconian policing, today the police were on their best behaviour, facilitating protest and standing back and letting it happen – though of course filming protesters and writing a lot in their notebooks.

I arrived to be greeted by a bunch of ghouls getting ready for the action a short distance from the starting point, and after wandering down to the offices of arms manufacturer BAE along in Carlton Gardens and finding just a small group of photographers and other media people waiting for something to happen, walked back and took a few pictures, then went with them to the protest.

I couldn’t find a really good solution to photographing this group from the Campaign Against the Arms Trade. As you can see, they had a long black banner with the message ‘Think we’re SCARY? You’ll find ARMS DEALERS INSIDE’ and the six people in black with ghoul or skull masks, some in best grim-repear mode carrying scythes were spread out along its length. Getting the banner text legible made most at least of those holding it rather small, and without the text the point of the costumes was unclear.  Though the red lights inside the BAE offices did rather appropriately put me in mind of the fires of hell.

This wasn’t the only banner, with a particularly fine example from the long and resourceful Brighton campaign against their local arms manufacturer EDO, and there were other things that helped in making photographs of the event such as the white plastic suits, which you can see in the pictures at G8 Protest Against Arms Dealers, but it wasn’t until the final short rally of the event that I really began to find images that I felt were a little more than routine.

My favourite from the event shows it framed between two faces – and it could perhaps usefully be cropped a little at top and right. At the left is the ‘Anonymous’ mask, actually on the back of the head of a man who is speaking (see below.) The man on the right is holding the end of the anti-EDO banner, held by a row of people in those white suites, tow of them with face masks. Behind them a police van and an officer watching, as well as red and black and green flags held by the protesters.

As usual I was working with the 16-35mm on the D700 and the 18-105mm DX on the D800E, where the greyed-out area around the DX frame is a great aid in precise framing. All except the top image here were made with the 16-35mm. More pictures at G8 Protest Against Arms Dealers.