>Re-PHOTO

Cleaners protest for a living wage at the Tower

My only regret about the Cleaners Protest at the Tower of London is that I had missed their previous protest, when they had actually gone inside the Tower. On this second occasions they were stopped as they made their way through the gates. There were several pictures I took that I liked, but this one I chose in part because of the obsious power of those puffed out cheeks, but also because it makes clear several things about the protest.  When I was taking it I had some difficulty in getting a clear view of that crown and EIIR on the gate behind as well as one of the few placards on display – the simple single word ‘SHAME’ – as well as the union banners at right.

Guy Fawkes is usually known as the only man ever to enter Parliament with honest intentions, and while our celebrations on 5 Nov started as an anti-Catholic event over the years they have changed. In my youth they certainly had a certain anarchic character, though more recently they have evolved from being things people did in their own back gardens or as a community event into performances staged by professionals, for people whose only participation is to move from watching a screen on a couch to standing in the open in a crowd watching the sky.

But the graphic novel/film ‘V for Vendetta’ took the anarchic side of the myth and developed it, providing the mask for the ‘Anonymous’ movement, so the Anonymous March to Parliament on Nov 5th was certainly apt if not entirely satisfying; like a firework it started brightly but rather fizzled out. But I rather liked this group on one of the lions in Trafalgar Square before the suitably anarchic stroll down Whitehall to Parliament, where nothing much happened for rather a long time and I got bored and went home.

Election night outside the US Embassy

Truth, Justice and the American way? took the occasion of the US Election to hold a protest against some of the abuses being carried out by the US, in particular over the continuing shame of Guantanamo, still a blot on the nation, still holding men illegally four years after Obama had come into office pledged to close it. The last remaining Londoner, Shaker Aamer is still there after almost 11 years, not because of any crimes he has committed but because of the crimes committed against him, the torture before he was taken to Guantanamo and while there, and the evidence he might give that would incriminate both the US and also the UK governments and agencies. While our governments have asked for his return in public, it seems likely that in private – as over extraordinary rendition and torture – they are colluding with the US to keep him locked up until either he dies or becomes unable to testify.

I think the picture, with three men in orange Guantanamo-style jumpsuits, two in black hoods, and one of them manacled and wearing headphones – a reference to the use of “culturally offensive” heavy metal and other music played at extreme volume repetitively for hours on end to send prisoners mad by US Military torturers – standing holding the banner ‘End Extraordinary Rendition’ around the feet of the statue of President Eisenhower with candles lit for the vigil, and a rather bored looking police officer.

On the full-size image I can read the start of Eisenhower’s ‘Order of the Day’ for the D-Day landings on June 6, 1944, ““Soldiers, sailors, and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force!” He continued (hidden behind the banner) “You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.”

The eyes of the world were on the USA on 6 Nov too, and the embassy was lit up by laser-projected Stars and Strips moving across its facade. Down in front of the embassy were around 50 or so “liberty-loving people” calling for the US to march with them again, and to release those illegally held and tortured by them. It was a deeply ironical moment.

On the top deck of the Campaign against Climate Change bus

The US came in for more criticism on the following day when the Campaign against Climate Change protested in London urging President Obama to stand up against the lobbying, dirty money and media lies funded by the Koch brothers and other fossil fuel companies. On My London Diary, in the text of Stop Fossil Fuel Dirty Money takeover of US I referred to it as “The day the USD election results were announced”, a typing error that was perhaps only too true.

The entire presidential campaign had been marked by an almost total silence over perhaps the biggest issue facing the US and the world – climate change. You can’t read all of the banner in the picture above, but ‘End Climate Silence’ is enough. Eventually it was forced onto the agenda at a late stage by the hurricane or tropical storm, which perhaps gave Obama the presidency. His record on climate is poor, but the Republicans abysmal, with many of their leading figures denying climate change or any man made contribution to it. Funding from huge private dirty energy companies – such as those of the Koch brothers plays a large role in US politics.

This year’s Student March on Parliament was a rather tamer event than those at the end of 2011, and so failed to really make the headlines. The student leadership had agreed a route with police that took them past Parliament and on to Kennington Park, but like quite a few students I gave up before we reached there as the rain began to pour down. Those who made it apparently turned some of their anger against the leaders, pelting them with fruit and veg, but I missed that.

I did take some more serious pictures, but I really enjoyed the humour of this group from the University of Central Lancashire, particularly the young woman in the centre who has been posing for photographers showing off her well-filled #DEMO2012 t-shirt (and there are a couple more pictures of her doing so on My London Diary, which I like too.) I went on to photograph another group from UCLAN with a young woman clutching her teddy bear, which made them laugh too.

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

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Muslims protest outside Parliament against anti-Islam film

I’ve not watched the YouTube clip that has led to protests by Muslims around the world, and it seems to me that the most appropriate response to such things is to ignore them and concentrate on sending out a positive message. The protests which have led to riots and deaths in some countries seem counter-productive, but at least that in London, although obviously showing anger, was peaceful.

I didn’t find Muslims against Anti-Muslim Film an easy protest to cover, and I missed my 16-35mm which was in for a very expensive repair, and the fixed 20mm f2.8 I was using was not quite wide enough for some situations, though it just about does here. Obviously the flags add some colour, but I was also thinking of them as a way of communicating a message (though as I don’t read Arabic, it was less clear to me exactly what this was), as to was the giant TV screen, although the people here were peering to see the speaker on the stage out of picture to the right.  The prayer caps ( taqiyah or kufi) is an important symbol worn by men to show adherence to Islam (although the form of these differs in different countries.)  I also wanted to show that the protest was taking place outside Parliament.

Muslims protest outside Google against anti-Islam film

Later in the month, Muslims protested outside Google (or at least male Muslims did – the womens’ protest was  a block away down the street) callling for an End to the Vilification of Islam and I made another picture which I think shows some of the fervour of their protests.

Protest in Whitehall calls for green electricity by 2030

The event calling on the government to move to clean energy by 2030 was perhaps more of a media event than a protest, and was an attempt to try and recreate the iconic ‘Labour Isn’t Working’ Tory election poster, but with people wearing green hard hats and the message ‘Green IS Working.’  I have to say my heart sank when I read the press release explaining this as it will have been obvious to anyone with some visual sense that the idea was just not going to work – and it didn’t.  Though the green hard hats did add some interest. I was certainly very glad I wasn’t the ‘official’  photographer whose job it was to produce the picture – though if approached I would have told those who had come up with the idea why it wouldn’t work and turned the job down unless they had changed their plan.

After the attempt to produce this on the Treasure steps facing St James’s Park (and the photographer should have got some usable pictures if not that ‘Saatchi’ image) the crowd walked around to Parliament St and stood around for a while. I asked the person who appeared to be in charge if they intended to protest at Downing St – which seemed the obvious thing to do – but was told that wasn’t at all the kind of thing they would do as it might upset people.

I’ve known the woman holding the embroidered placard ‘Save Our Green Earth’ for years, since my wife worked with her in the 1970s, and have photographed her and her various banners at many protests, and she certainly attracts photographers. But on its own with her banner she didn’t seem to make a powerful image; in this picture it is the closer woman, mouth slightly open and looking up at her flag outside the image as if looking up to heaven, along of course with the other people in green hard hats and banners around that make things work, while the embroidered placard adds its message.

Police grab protester in protest over evictions of travellers

A year after the evictions at Dale Farm – and with more expected – the  Traveller Solidarity Network staged a protest, Fight for Sites, that went to serve an eviction notice on minister Eric Pickles at the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), which ended in the pouring rain with scuffles in front of the building and a group of protesters occupying a low roof over the entrance.

One senior woman police officer in particular made the job of photographing the protest difficult by continually shouting out that of course we had a right to photograph while practically denying us the chance by forcing us out of the places we needed to be if we were to take pictures.  I was fortunate enough to evade her for  minute or two while she was hounding press on the other side of the protest and was pleased to have the 16-35mm back on my camera to take this image at 16mm. I was of course being careful not to get in the way of the police, but that didn’t need me to stand very far away. If anything I was getting in the way of protesters who might otherwise – as the closest man appears to –  be moving in to try and rescue another protester who has been grabbed by police.

Part of the reason this picture works is my closeness to the action and the steep perspective that this gives, exaggerating the hand of the officer at the left as he grasps the wrist of the protester.  It gave me too the strong diagonal of the protester’s arm from the hand of the officer up to the protesters head and the head of the second officer, with his shoulder and arm leading the eye back into the action.

USDAW marchers pass Parliament in TUC march for ‘A Future that Works’

The TUC A Future That Works March on Oct 20 was a large event, even if the numbers weren’t quite as large as in the big TUC march the previous year.   This was one of the pictures I thought worked well, with women in USDAW aprons, and USDAW flag and balloon in front of the Houses of Parliament.

Protester, police and manager in protest at hotel using unpaid workfare staff

From the TUC march I went on to follow Boycott Workfare in their protests around Oxford St against businesses  replacing paid workers with unemployed people who have the choice to work for nothing or lose their benefits – Against Workfare and Tax Cheats. Their first call was to a hotel in Great Marlborough St, where I went inside with them.

Police followed in shortly afterwards, and as well as one of the protesters in a devil mask holding a placard ‘Police are Plebs’ the picture shows one of them explaining to the manager that she has to come and tell the protesters they must leave before the police can take action. She seems rather reluctant, but finally did so as you can see in another picture in the story

Bereaved members of United Families & Friends Campaign at Downing St

There have been a truly remarkable number of deaths in custody under suspicious circumstances over the years, including many where the only possible explanations are that the deaths were a result of deliberate acts by police or prison officers as well as others involving culpable neglect, but not a single one of the perpetrators of these offences has been brought to justice.

The United Families & Friends Campaign has campaigned powerfully for truth and justice in these cases, and has also been remarkable for the support which the families affected by these crimes have given each other. This picture, on the road outside Downing St, seemed to me to illustrate this, with Marcia Rigg, sister of SeanRigg, killed in Brixton Police station holding Demetre Fraser’s mother as she speaks. At the right of the picture is Carole Duggan, whose nephew Mark Duggan was shot by police last year, precipitating the riots, and behind, holding a placard is Kadisha Brown-Burrell, the sister of Kingsley Burrell (and the woman almost hidden is the mother of Anthony Grainger.)  But there are several other images from No More Police Killings, Time For Justice, my report of the annual UFFC march which I also find powerfully emotional.

Zombie Police win second prize in Halloween crawl around London

I try to be objective and detached about the police, who I come into contact (usually not physically) regularly in my work. Many of them are polite and helpful and recognise that I have a job to do just as I realise that about them. I often feel they are being ordered to do the wrong things by their political masters, and at times that they do things badly, and that it’s part of my job to record and sometimes comment on this, but I try to treat them fairly.

But on the Saturday before Halloween on the Zombie Crawl of the Dead I found myself with some rather different police. I first met them in a dimly-lit bar and it wasn’t immediately clear whether they were the real thing or not, though this was soon sorted out when one of them showed me his warrant card. They were the well-deserved winners of the second prize awarded by the organisers of the event. I just hope the police had enough of a sense of humour not to arrest these guys for impersonating police officers, although they seem to reserve this offence for those making a political protest.

Continue reading 2012 – My Own Favourites – October

On September 1 the EDL tried to march to a rally in Walthamstow and the people of Walthamstow turned out in force to say they were not welcome. Although I was happy with the pictures I took, there was perhaps no single image that stood out or somehow summed up the event. Today I chose this one of people sitting in the road on the route the EDL intended to take to their rally, I think mainly because of the mix of ‘ordinary people’, citizens of London that it shows, united in their determination that the EDL will not pass. But another day I might chose a different picture, perhaps  of the road filled with people marching behind a banner, or of a brave couple on their own on the march route standing with a placard – and with two police standing on the same street corner.

Walthamstow sits down on the road to stop the EDL

The EDL were in some ways easier to photography, simply because they were far fewer in number, although practically it was much harder as they were surrounded by police and at times rather unfriendly, with several swearing at me or threatening me for taking their pictures.

I wasn’t prepared for the confrontation that looking back on it was inevitable. Trying to be too clever I’d gone down the side street which the EDL march was about to be diverted down by police away from the protest against them, and was a couple of hundred yards away when I heard fireworks being thrown and a lot of shouting as the EDL and their opposition both tried to break through the police lines and get at each other. By the time I managed to get back to the corner most of the actual action was over, though I still got a few pictures including several of one particular confrontation, taking pictures over the heads of police with the 28-105mm at or near its extreme end. I couldn’t get any closer, though that was perhaps just as well. Almost all of the fighting that I saw – and all I  managed to photograph – was between the EDL and police

I was annoyed with myself – it had been a stupid decision to go on ahead, and it bugged me for the rest of the day, though I continued to follow the EDL march until it was held in a side street by the police who judged it unsafe for them to continue. I went on to photograph the small group of EDL leadership who had come by van and set up the PA system for their rally and were now facing a large hostile crowd held back by police. They got the police to tell me to leave their area before I could take any pictures, and along with other photographers I was then in the area between the two groups of protesters. After photographing ‘Tommy Robinson’ picking up a half brick that had landed not far from him and carrying it across to police I decided it wasn’t a healthy place to be, as I refuse to work in a helmet. Already I’d been hit or had near misses from pieces of wood and card from placards; things seemed to have reached an impasse, with police blocking the roads and kettling the EDL and I decided it was time to leave. The EDL had clearly been defeated by the people of Walthamstow, though it only became clearer later exactly how much of a rout it had been – and how the police had really rubbed it in.

EDL marchers try to get though police line

I was busy with other things during the month, not least preparing for my first one-person show for a while, which although relatively small with around 25 pictures, did occupy quite a few days work printing, framing, writing text and captions, delivering and hanging. And I also had a few days up in Yorkshire, a short break in which I walked and photographed a little scenery and a large family event. So I had rather fewer opportunities to take pictures than in most months.

‘Rape Survivor’ protests ahead of ‘Slutwalk’

One of the events I was sorry to miss because I was up north was the Slutwalk. But I was able to take a few pictures at a media event called to publicise it and the cause a few days earlier, with a small group of women posing and speaking in their underwear opposite Downing St with appropriate placards and messages on their bodies.

At the end of a month I was interested to photograph a protest for women’s reproductive rights, opposing the recent attempts by militant right wing ‘Christian’ groups to harass women going to abortion clinics and attempts in Parliament to reduce the time limit on abortion, as well as supporting women in Ireland who suffer under strict anti-abortion laws, leading to at least one high-profile death in recent months, as well as considerable difficulties and suffering for many others.

‘Our bodies are still battlegrounds’ after Barbara Kruger

One particular placard caught my attention, with its message ‘Our bodies are still battlegrounds’ in white text on red background strips across a split positive and negative black and white image of a woman’s face, a slight revision of feminist artist Barbara Kruger‘s 1989 ‘Your body is a battleground‘. It remains a powerful image. I’ve long appreciated Kruger’s work, while continuing to remind people that she isn’t a photographer!

In my earlier review of the month (with different pictures to those in this post) after I’d finished putting the work on line I came to the conclusion:

September I took quite a lot of pictures that I liked, but probably none that will ever end up in my portfolio. Lots of good workmanlike stuff, and things that some of those I photographed liked, but little of the magic that we all need to make something special.

Continue reading 2012 – My Own Favourites – September

Unlike many in the UK I didn’t get enthusiastic about the Olympics. I’ve never had much interest in sport as a spectator, though I used to enjoy taking part in it as a not particularly outstanding runner and player. I even got a medal for playing football when I was eleven, and shattered my borough’s record for the quarter-mile in my mid-teens (the two timekeepers were right to doubt the evidence of their stop-watches when my time was close to the British record –  rather assisted by the tape having been stretched across at the wrong markers!)

I was also still upset at the inappropriate developments being made to an area of London I’d photographed and had grown to like, and the way that some of those who had worked in the area had been poorly treated, with often inadequate compensation and promises that in some cases were already broken, and which are almost certain to be forgotten in the ‘legacy’. The London Olympics was built on lies, and the lies got worse as time went on. It was obvious from the start that whatever was said about regeneration in the Olympic bid, holding an event of this sort was not an appropriate way to go about it.

So I didn’t bother to get accreditation for the events taking place around London, but I did go to various protests related to it, including Adidas Stop Your Olympic Exploitation, where War on Want staged some games and handed out leaflets highlighting the fact that Adida, the official sportswear partner of London 2012, sells clothing made by workers who get poverty wages are not allowed to form unions and have little or no job security. The picture shows two ‘athletes’ struggling to get over the hurdles of a 90 hour week, poverty wages and union busting on Oxford St outside Adidas, and I think shows the protest very clearly with the placards and shop signs.

I’ve photographed Hizb ut-Tahrir events for some years and often have felt rather uneasy about them. I don’t like the way they usually seem to keep women away from the centre, in their own bloc sometimes almost out of sight, and in this protest they were around 50 yards down the road from where the speeches were taking place – and all the speakers were men.

So although I was pleased to find Hizb ut-Tahrir Supports Rohingya showing solidarity for the Muslims in Burma who are being persecuted both in Burma and when they take refuge in Bangladesh, I didn’t feel easy with the feel of this event, and in particular with what seems like fanaticism by some of the speakers. Of course some of the speeches were not in English, and it can be difficult to judge the tone and the body language. But I think that this picture very much reflects the unease I feel.

But at least Hizb ut-Tahrir were giving the Rohingya support, were providing some publicity for them. Their cause is one that our politicians and media almost entirely ignore.

On the other hand, it’s perhaps a shame that Julian Assange gets quite so much coverage in the media. If he had a lower profile, our Foreign Secretary would not have made such an ass of himself and there would not have been the huge media circus after Assange had taken refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy. The police too would have avoided making themselves look rather silly when they got huge coverage when they surrounded the embassy and seemed about to storm it.

I’d walked past the embassy a few times since Assange had holed up in there, but hadn’t seen anything of interest – a handful of protesters and press or just a few abandoned placards, but dropped by again the day after he had been granted political asylum – and William Hague had made clear not only that he would not be allowed free passage out of the UK, but had more or less threatened we might storm the embassy to arrest him and the police charade had followed.

There were still around 50 police in the immediate area – when one or two would have been plenty – and more media people – reporters, photographers, TV crews – than I could be bothered to count, and sitting around in a few small groups on nearby steps, about a dozen protesters. One of whom, shown above, did a little dance for the media while I was there. I took a few pictures and left, thankful that I didn’t have to hang around there for days while nothing much happened.

I couldn’t photograph Assange (though I have done before) but the picture shows him, as well as the police guarding the door to the embassy, and someone inside looking out, as well as the supporter making an inevitable ‘Victory’ sign.  You can see a few more pictures I took in Ecuador’s Embassy & John Massey.

Pussy Riot 1

Pussy Riot 2

Pussy Riot 3

Pussy Riot 4

Pussy Riot from the start have very cleverly set out to exploit the media, and have really created an incredible amount of interest in the West for their protests in Russia. Their highly colour hoods lend themselves to very photogenic protests.

I took quite a few pictures at the Free Pussy Riot protest opposite the Russian Embassy in mid-August, and can’t quite bring myself to chose a favourite from the four above. Perhaps readers would like to comment and possibly pick one?

I don’t often travel out of London for protests, but Chelmsford is only a short rail journey, and when I heard that the English Defence League were planning to march through there I decided to make the journey. I’m certainly no supporter of the EDL, but can understand much of the frustration they feel while finding their response to it repugnant, and certainly they represent at least a small section of working class opinion, and one that should be reported accurately and fairly.  But they don’t always welcome being brought out into the open.

I would rather have been elsewhere doing something more pleasant, but was pleased to be able to report accurately EDL Outnumbered in Chelmsford, and to have some decent pictures to go with the story despite just a little hassle in getting them.  The counter-protest, a bit over three times as large, was much more pleasant to photograph – no abuse, no threats, people co-operating and talking intelligently, but was visually somewhat duller.

The picture above, taken at 93mm (equiv) through the procession from the opposite side of the road is perhaps just a little too tightly cropped, and I immediately zoomed a little wider and took a second fairly similar frame. But although the composition in this is in some ways better, minor details have changed – you don’t really get a second chance with things like this – and it loses a little immediacy.

At the end of the month came the Paralympic Games, and disabled groups seized the opportunity to stage a week of events and protests, with mock opening and closing ceremonies as well as an occupation of the Department of  Work & Pensions. But on the Wednesday of the week they held a more serious and solemn event, covered in Disabled Pay Respect to Atos Victims with a short service outside the Atos Offices, as a part of which an empty coffin was brought in by a group of four people in wheelchairs and flowers were then laid on it.

It was one of those times where I managed to be in the right place and occasionally to get the flash exposure right and to catch more or less the right moment. Taken with the 16-35mm at 19mm I was pretty close to the coffin and with my back against the wall behind. The ambient light was very low- the surroundings are a little underexposed at 1/60 f6.3 ISO 1600. The people laying the flowers weren’t posing for photographers – they didn’t hold them for a second or so but simply threw them onto the pile. These two make the best of the pictures I took partly from their gestures but also because of the placard the woman is wearing around her neck which lists some of the more ridiculous ‘fit to work’ judgements made by ATOS. Probably most viewers won’t recognise the t-shirt her companion is wearing – from the 1990s Disabled People’s Direct Action Network (DAN.)

Continue reading 2012 – My Own Favourites – August

Amnesty International group at WorldPride 2012

Pride ain’t what it used to be, for sure. But this year, with a ban on vehicles forcing everyone onto the streets perhaps took it back a little towards the kind of event it used to be and less of the slickly commercial festival parade it has been becoming. This was also an important anniversary, WorldPride London marked 25 years since the first Pride in London, with some of those who came out on the street then marching proudly at the front of the event. Their protest – and it was then both a personal and a political protest – was one of the forces that have led to a profound change in attitudes in the past 25 years, making it almost impossible to understand how things were back then.

Stonewall group at WorldPride 2012

Of course I photograph many of the more eccentric and flamboyant dressers that give the event much of its character, but the pictures that tend to be of more interest to me are on the more political end. The first two pictures both centre around an individual in a crowd, in both cases seeming a little distanced from all that is happening around them.  Both also emphasize a single message repeated across the frame, ‘Love is a Human Right’ and ‘Some people are gay – get over it’. And it is really the other things that are happening in the frame that make them appeal to me, the different expressions of the people, the couple kissing, the giant and the child and so on.

These were both taken as the march formed up on Baker St, where the people are much closer together than during the actual march, and either standing around or moving slowly.  In both I’ve used flash, and with the wide angle – at 16mm in the top image and zoomed out a little to 22mm  in the lower one, I’m very close to the people I’m photographing. Many of the people in them are aware that I am photographing them because I’ve already taken several frames, and of course there are many other people around also taking pictures.

Queer Resistance at WorldPride 2012

Later in the day I came back to the march as it neared its end and took a few more pictures on Whitehall, including several of the small group of gay anarchists. I was attracted by the directness of the message held up by this young man, carrying one end of the ‘Queer Resistance’ banner and out to ‘smash the church, the state and patriarchy’ and took several pictures walking backwards a short distance in front of him as he pushed the message out towards me.

Nelson on his column in Trafalgar Square rising above his hand seemed somehow appropriate, certainly representing London and perhaps also the state and the system he was intent on smashing. It also strikes me as a rather phallic monument, and perhaps appropriate for that reason also.

Cleaners protest inside John Lewis on Oxford St

Cleaners protest outside John Lewis on Oxford St

I’ve spent quite a lot of time this year photographing the efforts of the cleaners to get decent conditions, to be treated fairly and with respect by their management and to get a living wage.  The series of protests at John Lewis – I photographed three in July, Cleaners Strike at John Lewis, John Lewis cleaners step up protest and Cleaners Continue Fight at John Lewis – highlighted their case, with John Lewis, in some respects at least a model company with its ‘partnership’ structure getting its dirty work done on the cheap by outsourcing it to a company that paid them as little as it could and treated them like dirt.

The protests by cleaners, backed by their union, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW – later in the year they formed their own group, the IWGB) are loud, colourful and very public and have proved effective, embarrassing managements and forcing them to negotiate. Larger and better-known unions could learn a lot from them and the way that the IWW/IWGB have made the workers more central to disputes and united them in the actions at the workplace.

I think that these pictures show something of the spirit of the cleaners, their solidarity and their determination – which has been rewarded by some notable successes, although there are still far too many workplaces in London where cleaners are underpaid, overworked and subjected to management abuse, and the struggle continues

Photocall at Marble Arch for ‘Spare the Bears’

PETA ‘Spare the Bears’ March against the use of animal fur in ornamental military headgear was one I almost missed. I’d gone to its start point only to find a handful of people standing around in rather heavy rain and nothing happening at the time I’d been told it would start. I went off to photograph something else, but when I’d done that tried to find them on their way. I’d pretty well given up completely by the time the actually arrived for the final photocall at Marble Arch, where this picture was taken. I took several pictures with this woman holding her bear at the front of the group, mainly in portrait format, which are perhaps better, but this is the one I come back to, with just the head of the pale cream bear peeping over the black arm and purple glove.

First communicants waiting to take part in the procession

Another event that I’ve photographed many times over the years is the annual procession of Our Lady of Mount Carmel from the Italian church in Clerkenwell.  As so often its a picture about the different gestures and expressions of the people in the picture, but also one that makes clear what and where it is. Another picture close to the main figures with the 16mm and tightly framed.

Continue reading 2012 – My Own Favourites – July

 
58/87mm f5.3 ISO 800

December started with a busy day for me. I’ve photographed most of the events organised by the Campaign against Climate Change (CCC) since it began, and their annual climate march at the start of December is a fixture in my diary, and I’d also been asked personally to take pictures.

So I was there at the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square for the start at noon, though it was disappointingly rather a slow start. But eventually things got going with a decent number for a rally and then the construction of a pipeline along the whole length of the square – around 250 metres – held up by activists, running between the embassies of the USA (the world’s leading polluter and the country that has done most to prevent any effective action over climate change) and Canada (currently raising the stakes over dirty energy with its tar sands.)  Like all too many media stunts which seem a good idea to those promoting them, it was virtually impossible to photograph in any sensible way – though I did my best. The picture above only included a single length of pipe, though I did manage one that worked with slightly more.

16mm f4 ISO 800

Finally, almost half an hour later than planned, the Climate March set off to Westminster, and I left them a few hundred yards down the road to go elsewhere.

By now it was 2pm and I rushed up to Oxford St,  where I found a rather smaller group of activists than I had expected starting to get ready to protest outside Adidas against the company’s failure to pay the redundancy due to some of those who had produced goods for them in Indonesia.

18/27mm f4.5 ISO  800

It took a little while for them to get organised and for a few late-comers to arrive, but then it was fairly straightforward to take some pictures before jumping on a 73 bus for the short journey to South Street and the Egyptian Embassy to photograph the protest there against the decree by President Morsi. There were rather fewer there than I expected too, although the protest had been timed to start around 45 minutes earlier and the Egyptians sometimes seem to turn up rather late, so perhaps some were still on their way. A very small bonus was that this turned out to be two protests, with 4 or 5 supporters of the President holding their own protest against the main one – which was perhaps ten or twenty times larger.

26mm f4.5 ISO 800

It wasn’t too easy to follow what was happening, as most of the placards and all of the speeches were not in English, and I had to spend a few minutes talking with protesters as well as taking pictures, but it wasn’t long before I had done enough and was on my way to Green Park station.  But I was already late, and had to hurry, running a little to get there faster.  Getting off the train at Westminster, the marchers had beaten me, but I arrived at Old Palace Yard a little out of breath but in time to photograph the raising of the mock fracking derrick there. It was another stunt which sounded rather better as an idea than producing good pictures.

16mm f6.3 ISO 1600

I took quite a few, but couldn’t really get anything that worked well.

Earlier in the day there had also been another protest I’d photographed in Grosvenor Square, by West Papuans outside the Indonesian Embassy on the anniversary of their short-lived independence. It was a protest by a small group, but visually more effective than many with the flags and face-paint.

75/112mm f8 ISO 800

Links

Climate March Says ‘NO’ to Fracking
Morsi’s Dicatatorial Decree
Free West Papua Independence Day
Adidas ‘Pay Your Workers’

As usual, I’d planned my day the previous night, working out which events I could cover and the timings and how I could get from one place to another. For once, despite some things running a little late, which made me change things a little, my plans more or less worked out.

Continue reading Busy Saturday

June was a shorter than usual month for me, as I spent a week, welcomely coincidental with the royal shenanigans,  away in the wilds of rural Devon. Though they are not very wild and were very wet, so I took relatively few pictures, and none that made my favourites list.

But I was pleased to be in London for the annual Naked Bike Ride, a rather curious and somewhat vaguely ecological protest that gives a great deal of interest and amusement to riders and spectators alike. One of the challenges for the photographer is in finding images that are widely publishable with so much flesh on display, and I’ve always been fairly cautious in the images that I have put on the web, although I know that there will still be some that offend a few people.

Personally I can’t find nudity offensive, although I think there are good reasons for most of us to keep most of our bodies covered up most of the time, not least our British weather. Since Genesis tells us that God created man and woman in his own image I find the objections of some extremist Christians blasphemous, but making a cult of nudity and body worship is equally disturbing, with its echoes of the Third Reich (when “Mensch und Sonne” was official party literature.)

I’ve deliberately not put the picture from the Naked Bike Ride at the top of this page, and if anyone is likely to be upset in any way by looking at pictures of people without clothes they had better not scroll down. But I like this picture because it shows a whole group of people taking part in the event, standing with or sitting on their bikes, mostly more or less naked (the only absolute clothing rule is that you have to wear something on your feet.)

They are taking a breather on Westminster Bridge, with the Houses of Parliament behind them, making obvious that this is taking place in the centre of London. Cycling for me – and I learnt to ride a two-wheeler when I was six – has always been about freedom, and I like the sense of freedom in this image. People are together but doing their own different things, including drinking water, taking pictures, being photographed; only four of the twenty or so are wearing cycle helmets, a couple have sun hats and another two are in wigs.

More pictures (if some more nudity won’t offend) in Naked Cyclists Ride Against Oil.

A very different event in very different weather just a few days later,  was the Carnival of Dirt, a mock funeral procession to remember the many activists around the world who have been murdered for standing up against the interests of the powerful mining and extraction companies, many of which are based in the City of London, listed on the London Stock Exchange and who trade on the London Metal Exchange. Many of those taking part wore black, and one of the most striking was this woman, with the message ‘Poverty is Filth’ across her face.

I’d talked briefly with her and photographed her a couple of times at the start of the event on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral, and its hard to choose the best of several images (which you can see on My London Diary.) But this, taken in fairly heavy rain as we stood for some short speeches outside the Stock Exchange on Newgate St (yet again we were barred from Paternoster Square.)

I seldom ask people I’m photographing to look at me, although it is often important that eyes are visible, ‘eye contact’ isn’t always important in images, and often detracts. But here is is absolutely essential and unusually intense, large irises with small pupils staring fixedly from the image. I didn’t need to ask, this was obviously someone very aware of the image she had set out to create and the contrasts between black and white in her dress and hair and hat – and of course those bright red lips and the message written across her face.

The inspiration behind this event, and many of the more imaginative protests we have seen in recent years in London was the radical anthropologist Professor Chris Knight, a Marxist sacked from his post at the University of East London in 2009 for his involvement in the political street theatre group ‘The Government of the Dead’.

I’ve photographed him on many occasions at protests, usually in his black suit and hat, but the picture of him speaking through a megaphone at the London Metal Exchange, along with a crowd of protesters with coffins and placards with images of murdered activists is one of my favourites.

I was working with the 10.5mm partly because of the crush of the crowd which made it impossible to stand any distance away, but also because of the wet weather. Both the other lenses I was carrying – the 16-35mm and the 28-105mm Nikkor had become unusable, with condensation steaming up on internal lens elements. Like most zooms that change physical length the 28-105 isn’t good in damp weather as zooming pumps moist air in and out, but the 16-35mm where zoom and focus are both by internal movements is usually much better.

The wide angle has let me bring in so much that is happening around Knight, while the curvature of the image makes everything centre around him and the megaphone and the patch of mud on his face in symbolic solidarity with the people of West Papua where the Indonesian government is carrying out a policy of genocide on behalf of mining interests.

Several Fathers Day Vigils for Custody deaths were held around the country on June 17, and I went to Brixton Police Station, where a number of people over the years have died  – have been killed – under suspicious circumstances. Physically healthy young black men taken in by police dead within hours of arrival. Among them Ricky Bishop and Sean Rigg, killed inside Brixton Police Station on 21 August 2008, and whose inquest had just begun on 11 June 2012, a few days before I took this picture of his two sisters fixing a framed picture of him to the memorial tree outside the police station.

The case of Sean Rigg is just one of several thousand  – in my report on the event I noted:

The official statistics are deliberately (if not criminally) misleading and record only a small fraction of such deaths. A report published by the Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody in 2011 states:

‘in total, there were 5,998 deaths recorded for the 11 years from 2000 to 2010. This is an average of 545 deaths per year. Despite the fact there have been 11 unlawful killing verdicts since 1990 there has never been a successful prosecution. ‘

What makes some of these cases stand out – and in particular those of Ricky Bishop whose family organised this event, and of Sean Rigg – has been the determined effort by these families to get justice, not just in the case of their own families but also for others through the United Friends and Families Campaign.

Finally for June I’ve chosen a picture from Sudanese march in London, a protest on the anniversary of the coup by which President Omar el-Bashir came to power in 1989 calling on him to step down, for the release of all political prisoners and for BashiR, the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the International Criminal Court in a controversial decision in 2010, to be turned over to the ICC.

The picture, taken at 40mm (60mm) on the 28-105mm I think shows the united crowd calling for change, echoed by a red crowd in a placard behind the central raised fist. The shutter speed of 1/160s has rendered the people at the front of the crowd and their placards fairly sharply but the limited depth of field at f6.3 makes the more central man with the raised fist on whom I focussed stand out with critical sharpness, while the movement of his central fist gives it a very tangible blur.

Continue reading 2012 – My Own Favourites – June

May always starts with something of a bang, with various events marking May Day, including the annual march which has celebrated the day in London for around 40 years, but also with other groups organising their own events to mark the day. This year after the march I went to a protest by Campaign4Justice and Merlin Emmanuel outside the offices of the IPCC calling for its abolition for its failure to investigate police actions and then caught up with a group who were roaming central London protesting against shops using free labour with unemployed people given the ‘choice’ of working for nothing or losing their benefits.

Among those taking part in this ‘workfare’ protest were a group from Occupy London, and in the early evening after the police who had been following them all apparently went off shift walked up into the City and finally reached their original objective back in October 2011, the London Stock Exchange. I’d been there back in October 2011 when a general meeting at Westminster at the end of the Block the Bridge NHS Protest had voted to occupy the Stock Exchange, and outside with them the following Saturday when police blocked their access to the private Paternoster Square where is is situated, and on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral when they came to the decision to camp there instead.

Occupy London finally reach the Stock Exchange – 1 May 2012

So I was pleased to be one of the small handful of photographers who was actually with them when a small group finally made their objective and set up tents in the doorway of the London Stock Exchange, even if we all knew it was only a token gesture.  After a few minutes they were made to move a few yards away, and by the time the word got out and more police, photographers and press arrived the moment had gone, although the protesters were kettled in the square for some hours, long after I’d filed my story and gone to bed.

Again I needed the 16mm, and perhaps something even a little wider would have done the job even better – it could have been better with the whole of the design at top left and more of the second tent and person holding the banner at right.  There were too many people milling around to work from further away. The light was pretty dim and I had to use flash. The banner was only in position for a fairly short time and I was pleased to have managed to get its message and the sign for the London Stock Exchange in the picture above the line of seated protesters and the two tents. More pictures from the event at Stock Exchange Occupied.

Public Sector Pensions Strike and March

On 10 May there was a one-day strike by public sector workers over the raising of the retirement age and worsening of pension provisions as well as cuts in services. Many workers feel the trade unions have been slow to take action against the cuts and the austerity programme, including the attacks on the NHS, and the strength of feeling was shown in votes such as the 94% of Unite’s NHS members who voted for this day of action. This was a picture that I hope shows some of that strength of feeling and unity, with three of those holding the union banner shouting in unison, and the Unite flags flying behind them as they came over Westminster Bridge at the head of the march from St Thomas’s Hospital behind them at right of the picture.

Police March Against Cuts and Restructuring

On the same day the police were also protesting, both against the affect of the 20% cuts in police budgets and the proposed restructuring which will result in a partial privatisation of policing. But although impressively large, the police protest was visually a little on the dull side, and for me the main interest was in the various groups which took advantage of the event to show a little solidarity with them or raise some of the serious issues about policing which the Police Federation would prefer not to have explored or exposed. So near the front of the march, Ian Puddick, who was intimidated, attacked and prosecuted by City of London Terrorism Police and Counter Terrorism Directorate in an operation costing millions carried out on behalf of a giant US security corporation after he discovered his wife had been having an affair with one of her bosses was marching with a placard reading ‘Police Corruption’ and Occupy London were marching with them calling for  “fully, Publicly funded, democratically accountable Police force who’s aims and objectives enshrine the right to peaceful Protest in some sort of People’s Charter!” 

But my favourite among the fringe demonstrators was a ‘professional protest stall’ manned by the Space Hijackers, with advice on suitable placards and chants for the protest. I wanted to show some of these, along with the police march. Many of the police were obviously amused as they marched past, but the display did offend others, and I was present when police not taking part in the march threatened the Hijackers with arrest, particularly if they displayed a poster with the acronym ACAB on it, which you can also see on the peak of the cap being worn by the masked protester.  Shortly after I took this image, a line of police came and stood between the stall and the march in an attempt to hide it from view.

The London May Queen as Flora scatters flowers

On 10 of May I photographed a very different kind of event. From 2005 to 2010 I made a series of pictures at various events involving May Queens in London, in particular of the Merrie England and London May Queen Festival. 2012 saw the crowning of the 100th London May Queen and although I felt I had finished the project in 2010 this was something I didn’t want to miss.  I also wanted to show some of the people I had photographed the book I had produced (there is an earlier version with a preview and an i-pad version also available.)

I spent quite a lot of time talking to people and perhaps didn’t concentrate on taking pictures as much as in earlier years, but you can see the other pictures in London Crowns 100th May Queen.

One of the hardest things to photograph is the procession of the May Queen around the arena near the end of the event, when she scatters flowers to the children in the various May Queen realms seated around the outside. The picture captures this, with a rather large bunch of them in mid-air having just left her hand. I was fairly close – again with the lens at 16mm – but of course having to keep out of the way of the flowers and the children seated on the ground who they were being thrown towards. This was taken at 1/800s, fast enough to freeze the action, although the flowers are not quite sharp probably because they are out of focus. I wanted to get all of the procession sharp, and depth of field even on a well stopped-down 16mm has its limits. I’d decided not to use flash even though it would have helped with the nearer figures – as you can see I was working more or less directly into the sun – but to use a little post-processing to lighten these shadow areas. Any useful amount of flash would almost certainly had burnt out the very close flowers.

I’ve chosen two pictures from No To NATO, Troops Out Of Afghanistan in front of the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square on May 19.  One shows a left-wing newspaper seller talking with one of the protesters in the crowd holding placards in front of the embassy. The newspaper looks like the ‘Workers Hammer’ published by the Trotskyist Spartacist League. I don’t know if anyone ever does buy it, and though I’ve on occasion been given a free issue I’ve seldom found much of it worth reading.

Selling the Workers Hammer, No To NATO, Troops Out Of Afghanistan

Like most of my work, this was taken with the 16-35mm, but this at the long end of the zoom. It is I think all about gesture and expression, and about the kind of things that go on in the crowd at demonstrations, although I’m not sure it is all about selling newspapers.

My final selection from May was of one of the speakers at the same event. There were an interminable number of them, and after an hour or so my attention had rather drained away. But this speaker was different, because he came accompanied with flags.

Bahraini speaker and flags, No To NATO, Troops Out Of Afghanistan

The flag at bottom left was fairly static but the one behind the speaker was being waved fairly vigorously on a long pole. There was no wind to make a flag fly, but photographing this speaker and the flag was something of a challenge and I think the result is reasonably striking. Certainly it stands out against the probably 30 or so attempts I made, most of which where more or less immediately deleted .

Continue reading 2012 – My Own Favourites – May

Grattan Puxon speaking in the Holocaust Memorial Garden

Roma Nation Day is April 8, the date of the first World Roma Congress, held here in London in 1971, and Grattan Puxon was one of its organisers.  At least 500,000 Roma are thought to have been killed in the holocaust, and the German government formally recognised the Roma genocide in 1982. As well as holding a short ceremony at the memorial in Hyde Park, the group also went to protest outside the embassies or cultural centres of some other European nations where the Roma are still being discriminated against, including France, Bulgaria, Italy and Hungary, and ending after I left them, at the offices of our own Department for Communities and Local Government. The Dale Farm evictions were, as Grattan Puxon said, “very much the tip of the iceberg” here.

There was quite a crowd of photographers and videographers at the event, but I’d got to the scene before most and had carefully chosen my position, with the memorial stone at the centre of the image. I couldn’t know exactly how people and things would arrange themselves around it, but things worked out well.  Using the zoom at 16mm Grattan almost exactly filled the frame vertically. It was a dull day and the memorial garden is surrounded by trees, and I used a little flash to make him stand out from the surroundings, and the low viewpoint gives him something of a heroic aspect.

Andy Greene of DPAC in a wheelchair chain blocking the road

Disabled Activists Block Trafalgar Square was the headline for my story, and this was a picture than for me encapsulated the determination and frustration of disabled people who are suffering so badly from the cuts in benefits and cruelly dismissive target-led tests by Atos, and also the dilemma of the police in dealing with their protests.  Again it shows how the wide view of the 16mm is really needed in the kind of media scrum that happens around these events.

It wasn’t easy to take pictures which really showed the chain that locked the wheelchairs in position across the roadway well, but what really makes this picture for me are the expressions, particularly that of Andy Greene in his wheelchair holding up the chain. Less obvious in the small reproduction is the look of concern on the face of the police officer, also holding up the chain, and the concentration of my colleague holding the video camera. The two still cameras at top left and right also help to add a feeling of urgency; usually I try to avoid other photographers in my pictures, but here it was unavoidable anyway and they have become important parts of the scene.

Pussy Riot protester opposite Russian Embassy

The protests over the imprisonment of members of Pussy Riot have produced some interesting pictures, and there are several in my Protest Supports ‘Pussy Riot’ that I might perhaps have chosen. What makes this one stand out for me is of course the face that this woman is making over me taking her picture – again from a close viewpoint although the 16-35mm was racked out to 30mm.  Hers is also a very stylish mask, with its gold edging – rather a contrast to the roughly cut balaclava at the left, and she is also wearing some very stylish knitwear and a fine large black ring. It was a dull day, and even at ISO 1000 and full aperture of f4 the shutter speed was only 1/30 second, and the only truly sharp part of the image are her eyelashes, but I think the slight blur of her lips as she puckers them adds to the image.

It wasn’t the picture I chose to head the story, either on My London Diary or on Demotix, as there were others that were more recognisably part of the Pussy Riot stereotype, but this was my favourite image, and one that somehow seems rather more Russian.

Cyclists and dogs call for Safer Roads

The final picture of my April choice was taken in some of my least favourite working conditions, with many of my pictures being spoilt by rain on the lens filter despite my obsessive wiping. It’s also one of the few pictures that I’ve used significantly cropped – not just the little bits that sometimes need tidying where things have crept in unnoticed or invisible around the edges.

My favourite version of this image – seen above in full frame – crops off a little at the top and bottom and around a fifth of the image at the right -just removing that raised hand. Getting dogs to look the right way for a picture isn’t easy and I couldn’t get the framing right too.

Far too many cyclists get killed on London’s roads, and the Big Ride for Safe Cycling was an attempt to get the mayoral candidates to promise to improve things. And all the main candidates – including the winner – made promises, though so far little has happened. There are many ways in which the infrastructure could be improved, but what is really needed is a change in attitudes particularly by car and other vehicle drivers. But it was perhaps unfortunate that the ride didn’t strongly make the point that helmets are not an answer. Most of those who have been killed in London were wearing them and they offer very little if any protection while encouraging drivers not to give cyclists the room they need.

Continue reading 2012 – My Own Favourites – April