>Re:PHOTO Peter Marshall - Thoughts on Photography

More on Saturday

Continued from Last Saturday Everything Was Happening

From Topshop, I ran along Oxford St towards Vodaphone, which company had been voted for by UK Uncut supporters as the main target of their ‘Christmas special’. By the time I arrived, they were being prevented by police from entering the store – and UK Uncut are peaceful protesters who wouldn’t try and push their way in, so they simply gathered on the pavement outside.

There was plenty of room for them, as this section of Oxford St is currently one-way, with just a single lane fenced off at its centre, leaving a much wider than usual pedestrian area.

After chanting the indictment against Vodaphone, who it now seems have dodged not just the £6billion that UK Uncut originally alleged, but actually £8billion (or eight thousand million pounds in old-fashioned English) using the human microphone we’ve become used to from the Occupy movement – with one person reading a phrase which is then shouted out by everyone else – slow, tedious but remarkably effective – they then turned to singing UK Uncut’s Christmas Carols with suitably different lyrics to some familiar tunes.

I tried hard to get the idea that people were singing, and also to show where they were singing and getting the odd Santa hat, particularly with messages about tax was a bonus. Taken with the D700 and 16-35mm at 17mm, f5.6 gave enough depth of field. I used a fairly high ISO to get a reasonably fast shutter speed. On the full-size original you can read the words on the carol sheets, though I made sure to get a copy so I could quote from it in my story on Demotix (which will appear later on My London Diary.)

After that, the protesters even started dancing, but after taking a few pictures I decided I could leave and go elsewhere – which meant catching a bus towards Downing St.

On my list of events I had a protest listed by the Congolese, but the main group present when I arrived were Syrian Kurds, supporting the protests in Syria and calling for a ‘Free Syria.’ They were using both the old Syrian flag from the days when Syria gained its independence and also the flag of Kurdistan, and calling for the revolution in Syria to produce a federation in which the Kurds would gain recognition (many of them are stateless in Syria, and subject to laws against their language and traditions.) It seemed to me important to try and show both flags together where I could.

Flags at protests often make the pictures more interesting, but they can also be very frustrating, and it took a few frames to get one with the flag at the top which was being waved around blowing out well.

Just a few yards away there were a few Congolese, but it was only half an hour after their protest had been timed to start. Probably more would turn up later, but since I thought it unlikely I would be back I took some pictures. The big attraction in several ways was the dancing, mainly by some of the women, and I was especially attracted by one of them wearing a blue shirt with the yellow and red stripe and yellow star of the Congo flag.

But as I was preparing to leave, I saw a group of four of the men posing for a photograph. Although I don’t like to pose people – it’s interfering with the event – I’ve nothing against taking pictures of groups that the protesters themselves have set up, and I went across and they were happy for me to take aphotograph as well, playing up a little for the camera.

I was pleased it was a fairly slow bus ride from Whitehall to Bond Street, giving me time to have a little rest and finish my late lunch, although just a little worried that I might be too late at the US Embassy where I knew the friends of Bradley Manning were holding a vigil. But when I arrived, not only were they still there, but there were two other groups protesting.

The other protesters – pro-regime Syrians and Iraqis together with some people from Stop the War – were united in protesting against US intervention in their region. The Syrians wanted an end at attempts through the UN and other ways by the US to intervene in the actions their government is taking against what they call terrorists, while the Iraqis were celebrating the defeat of the US army, whose last active troops were leaving that day (though they were calling for the various ‘advisers’ and mercenaries also to go.) Both were united too in condemning the BBC and other media for telling lies about their countries.

Overall I couldn’t really find images that were strong, but there were a few individuals who I think told the story well. It was really much the same with the vigil for Bradley Manning.

Finally, I strolled down to the Egyptian Embassy, only to find 3 rather bored looking police and no protest. I was a few minutes early, so I took a walk around the block, and when I returned on time there was one man there. It was cold and I wanted to go home, but a couple of other photographers had arrived, so at least I had someone to talk to. After 20 minutes or so a few more protesters had arrived and they decided to start, and so did I.

There was really very little light, and even at ISO3600 the ambient in the pen where the protesters were standing was giving me readings like 1/4s f4. So most of the pictures I took were with flash, though I did play around a little without. I don’t like just using flash, because in photographing these kind of events it isn’t possible to play with multiple light set ups. You could work holding the flash at arms length, but I actually prefer the effects you can get with it on camera. I’ve experiments a little with using larger diffusers – and used to use these with film, but with the SB800 I don’t find they make a great deal of difference.

Flash doesn’t really work – except for fill – on the P setting on the Nikons. My best results come from working in S mode, with a fixed shutter speed. By selecting a suitable value you can get usually get a decent balance between flash and ambient, and in these dim conditions I found 1/20 a sensible compromise. This left the 16-35mm at maximum aperture (f4) which is fine. Some of the images are sharper than others, depending on the amount of movement of both photographer and subject. Personally I think I preferred a bit of blur, as in the picture above, but I think I used a similar but overall sharper frame for Demotix.

Fuller stories from Saturday are on Demotix – and will be posted later with more pictures on My London Diary.

MY DEMOTIX LINKS FOR 17 DEC 2011

UK Uncut Santa Calls on Dave Hartnett
UK Uncut Xmas protest at tax dodgers Topshop
UK Uncut Xmas protest at tax dodgers Vodaphone – London
Syrian Kurds In London Call For Stop To Syrian Massacres
Congolese Protests Continue in London
Iraqis and Syrians Protest At US Embassy – London
Bradley Manning birthday demonstration at US Embassy
Egyptians protest in London as Cairo troops attack protesters

Yuri Kozyrev

By the time I’d come to the third or fourth Tweet or Facebook post telling me I should look at Yuri Kozrev’s My Year on Revolution on the Time photo editors’ Lightbox, my expectations were considerably raised, and looking through his 64 pictures from the year they were not disappointed.

His is truly an incredible record of an incredible year (and of course there are many fine images from others too.) While there are a few that do little for me (and the opening crowd picture is perhaps unfortunately one – and without the recommendations might have put me off looking at the rest) time after time I found myself thinking “I wish I’d taken that” which is probably the highest accolade that photographers award.

Of course I’m not a guy who would get into many of the situations that Kozrev has been in over the years, preferring to keep in rather safer and less kinetic places, but there were some of his pictures that did make me think we share some approaches – even though he does it considerably better almost all of the time.

One of the tweets that took me to this site was from Photojournalismlinks, where you can find many more links to some more fine pictures from the year.

Lacoste Censor Larissa Sansour

I was shocked to read that high-end French clothing chain Lacoste had demanded the removal of Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour from the shortlist for the 25,000 Lacoste Elysée Prize, and even more disgusted that the Swiss Musee de lElysée, which I had thought to be an international venue with some integrity had bowed to their demand.

Earlier in the year Sansour had been nominated as one of eight artists short-listed for the 2011 prize, and along with the others received an initial grant – as the Museum page states*

” With the aid of a grant of 4,000 euros, each nominee will be invited to develop a photographic project around the theme la joie de vivre. They will be free to interpret this in which ever way they favour – in a direct or indirect manner, with authenticity or irony, based upon their existing work, or as an entirely new creation.”

Sansour submitted three photographs for her project ‘Nation Estate‘ to the museum in November 2011, and according to her press release, they “were accepted, and she was congratulated by the prize administrators on her work and professionalism.”

In what appears to be a simple act of political censorship, Lacoste refused to accept her work, regarding it as “too pro-Palestinian.” You can read more about this on the ‘Electronic Intifada‘ blog, as well as on Sansour’s own site. The museum’s web site removed all mention of Sansour from the material about the Lacoste Prize around a week ago.

Much of the sponsorship money that goes into major museums unfortunately comes from companies wanting to improve their rather unsavoury images – and in the UK we have the example of BP, a major promoter of climate change and environmental catastrophes such as the Canadian tar sands sponsoring our major public galleries – something I’ve covered in such events as Climate Rush’s Tate Britain Oil Spill Picnic and the incredible Rev Billy’s Tate BP Exorcism.

But damaging though this sponsorship is, so far as I am aware it has not been allowed to erode the artistic integrity of the institutions in the same way as this.

Further Developments

Since I posted, Lacoste has now completely withdrawn from this prize. You can read more about it at the British Journal of Photography and also at the Washington Post. *When I checked at the museum site just now the page about the prize it was empty.

I find it hard not to feel that Lacoste and the Elysée museum have both behaved incredibly stupidly in thinking they could get away with this kind of behaviour. It really is shameful that the museum did stand up to Lacoste – even if it would have meant losing the sponsorship, which in the event they have in any case done.

Lacoste’s statement says “Today, Lacoste reputation is at stake for false reasons and wrongful allegations” but I find it hard to take their statement (quoted in its entirety on the Washington Post) seriously. The reasons and allegations seem all too clear and all too true. Museums and artists would be well advised to avoid crocodiles, and certainly not sell out to them, and the only person to come out of this with any credit is Larissa Sansour.

Last Saturday Everything Was Happening

People sometimes think that photography isn’t work. My wife for one, and in some ways I agree with her, and it’s certainly great to do things that I really want to do and sometimes at least get paid because people want to buy the pictures or publish them. But I actually find it can be pretty exhausting, both physically and mentally.

My camera bag isn’t that heavy, though non-photographers I hand it too usually wince a bit at it’s weight. A couple of camera bodies, three lenses, flash, little oddments like spare batteries, lens cleaning stuff, remote release and then the kind of necessities of life – a bottle of water, umbrella, sandwiches,maps and a paperback to read add up, together with the bag itself to perhaps around 7-8kg (around 15lb for non-metric readers.) At the start of the day I can hang it on my left shoulder and hardly notice it. But by the end of the day it does drag a little. It perhaps doesn’t help that I only have one shoulder, probably a legacy from my rugby-playing youth; not only does my right side just kind of slope down with little on which to keep a bag in place, after a minute or so the pain reminds me that it really isn’t a good idea to try.

Many photographers now use back-packs. Certainly easier on the shoulders, but they can be a real pain to other photographers if you are working together in tightly packed situations. And though I don’t do a great deal of lens-changing, it is rather easier from a bag than a back-pack, even the kind that swivels around the body.

As usual I digress. What I wanted to say was that Saturday was rather an exhausting day for me, one that reminded me I’m getting older. But also one that demonstrated again why London is a great place to work, particularly if you want to photograph protests and similar events. Possibly the nine I photographed was something of a personal record for a day (discounting such multi-events as the mass lone demos orchestrated a few years back by Mark Thomas against the ridiculous limitations on protest imposed under SOCPA.)

And even so, there were other events taking place I was sorry to miss. Some because it really is impossible to be in Downing St and Belgrave Square at the same time (had I taken my bike with me I might almost have made it, but probably it would have been stolen earlier while I was photographing on Oxford St.) There was an interesting walk in the East End that was truly out of the question. There are also some events where you really have to stick with them as things unfold, and others that are pretty static and at least visually can be summed up in a few minutes.

My photographic day started in Parliament St, which as the name suggests is very close to Parliament, and is what most people think of as the bottom end of Whitehall just off Parliament Square. I’d been told that there would be lots of people in Santa costume there at the head office of our tax people (Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs – HMRC) who’ve lately been letting some big companies get away with not paying billions they owe in taxes, and of course they and the guys across the square in parliament make sure there are plenty of loopholes for them and their rich friends to creep through. If you are poor (or even in that ‘squeezed middle’) you pay taxes; if you are rich you pay accountants.

I arrived a little late, but just in time, to find one Santa and two helpers approaching the very impressive but firmly closed door. The protesters were just outnumbered by the four photographers, but more massively by the police, with a FIT team taking pictures and others standing around and sitting in vans, but not interfering with the protest at all. We took our pictures (there wasn’t really a lot to photograph as you can see) and left.

I had a little time to kill before the next protest, and as usual when I’m in the area I went across to talk with the protesters in Parliament Square, but they were still asleep so I didn’t disturb them, but walked around the square (still fenced off from the public – one of London’s minor scandals – and with a couple of guys paid there to sit inside the fence all day and do nothing) and then back up past Downing St to Trafalgar Square, finding nothing much happening at either location.

The great thing about free entry to museums and galleries is that you can wander in to the National Gallery on the north side of the square (or the National Portrait Gallery just a few yards around the corner) and spend say ten or fifteen minutes looking at a couple of your favourite paintings or perhaps finding something new, and I quite often do when I’ve time to spare. But time was getting on and I decided to get to the next location, so got on a bus to take me to Oxford Circus.

Another photographer was already there waiting opposite Topshop, and he told me that just a few minutes ago he had seen Bruce Gilden taking pictures at Oxford Circus, followed by a group of people, perhaps some kind of photo workshop. So having mentioned him in a post recently, I took a little walk looking for him (the flashes should have been easy to spot) but didn’t find him, and returned to Topshop.

Waiting outside there with another photographer, one of the higher ranking police officers came over to talk to us, telling us we would be allowed inside the store to a designated press area for the protest that was timed for 1pm. Around 15 minutes earlier I decided to go into the store, simply walking past the heavy security there with my two cameras on my chest as usual – and I don’t think they noticed.

But inside the store I decided I was unlikely to get much chance to take photographs – and the police officer had been talking absolute bullshit. So I left the store a couple of minutes before the protest occurred, knowing that there would also be a protest outside that I could cover. I’m not sure it was the right decision, but it did avoid trouble for me. Some other photographers who had also simply walked in past the security did get some pictures, but they were almost immediately either illegally assaulted and “arrested” for aggravated trespass by security staff or escorted out of the store (as I was three years ago when the Space Hijackers protested there.) Police did quickly arrive and “de-arrest” the photographers (and arrest the protesters) and they should be able to go to court to get compensation for their treatment.

Outside the shop, there were rather more demonstrators (including some who had been inside but left immediately when requested, but later we were told six had been arrested) and the protest continued for a few minutes before police decided to clear the pavement. They told the protesters that they were committing an offence by obstructing the highway, then proceeded to obstruct it even more effectively themselves for rather longer!

The protest continued for some minutes longer on the road and then on the opposite pavement, and it was a very confused situation, with crowds of shoppers mixing with the protesters, many of whom were taking the opportunity to give out leaflets explaining that the protest was taking place because Topshop avoids paying its proper share of UK tax.

It’s a situation that few people think we should tolerate, and one that the actions by UK Uncut have put firmly on the political agenda. Even the Conservative Party are having to take tax avoidance seriously despite representing so many who profit from the current failures of the system to collect tax fairly. Gradually more and more people are coming to realise that the amounts involved in tax evasion and tax avoidance are truly massive, dwarfing the losses to the country from illegally claimed benefits that get so much publicity in the right-wing press.

Soon it became clear that most of the protesters had melted away, and it was time for me to run along Oxford Street to where I knew their next protest would be.

Continued in another post

Shooting Under Fire

Shooting under fire gives a disturbing picture of the dangers faced by photographers around the world, too many of whom get killed or wounded covering the news.

After you’ve looked at t he pictures, you many also want to look at the web pages of the Committee to Protect Journalists, where on the front page it informs you that 43 journalists have been killed this year so far, and 890 since 1992, 556 “murdered with inpunity” and that 179 are in prison worldwide.

The CPJ, an independent, non-profit organization, was founded in 1981 and promotes press freedom worldwide by defending the rights of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal. They also have a very useful Journalist Safety Guide on working in hazardous situations, which can also be downloaded as a pdf.

In the UK, events are seldom life-threatening, although photographers do get assaulted, injured and threatened. But the only image in the 39 in Shooting Under Fire shows a football photographer at Anfield kitted up for working in driving rain. Uncomfortable perhaps, but hardly in the same league.

How To Steal Like an ARTIST

Thanks to duckrabbit for letting me know about How To Steal Like an ARTIST, in which Austin Kleon, a writer and artist from Austin, Texas, and author of the two books, Steal Like An Artist and Newspaper Blackout, reveals and explains “10 things I wish Id heard when I was in college.”

It’s a useful list and a clear and amusing presentation of some very good advice. But you really need to read it rather than read me writing about it. But I’ll just steal one little bit, where he talks about what you learn from a couple of guys you may have heard of who decided they were going to be artists (and later Patti Smith wrote about it.)

Patti Smith and her friend Robert Maplethorpe dress up in all their gypsy gear and they go to Washington Square, where everybodys hanging out, and this old couple kind of gawks at them, and the woman says to her husband, Oh, take their picture. I think theyre artists. Oh, go on, he shrugged. Theyre just kids.

Of course neither Austin or I suggest you should all dress up in gypsy gear and nip up to Washington Square, but as he says “Fake it til you make it.” And read his post to find out more. Mapplethorpe never became one of my favourite photographers, perhaps because I always felt he was faking it, but he certainly made it so far as the art world was concerned.

And when you get to the bottom of the page there are other things to explore, including a page of some great quotes on ‘stealing’, a few of which may be familiar.

Fukushima

One item of kit I’ve never packed in my camera bag is a Geiger counter, though I have used one, in a previous life before I before I switched to photography, and I learnt some of what little physics I knew sitting at the very bench in Manchester where in 1909 Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden, working under Ernest Rutherford “first split the atom”.

But for Italian photographer Pierpaolo Mittica it must be a pretty regular item of equipment. I read on Lensculture his story about his several visits into the No-Go Zone around Fukushima to document the situation there, before looking at the series of black and white images there. Certainly they catch the idea of an abandoned area – a bicycle thrown down, a teapot inside a former home with the words (in English) ‘TAKE IT EASY’, residents in masks and protective suits going back to reclaim belongings (although he also shows pictures of properties looted and wrecked by thieves), a worker from the plant praying at his family grave and more.

Missing from the presentation – and perhaps for good reason – are pictures of those “many people, most of them elderly, are still hiding out inside the zone, some of them with no visible protection” who he met.

Previously Mittica became well-known for his Chernobyl The Hidden Legacy (2002 – 2007) and you can see work from this as well as a number of other fine projects, including some in colour on his web site, which he dedicates to “Walter Rosenblum my great friend and mentor.”

Christmas Cards

When I followed a link from EPUK to a page of the worst 53 family Christmas cards (French text), my first thought was of the image selected by David Cameron for his card this year. While I wouldn’t want for a moment to be rude to the photographer, who I’m sure didn’t take it to be used as a card, the image by Stefan Rousseau does seem a little close to those included in that list, most of which came from another site, BuzzFeed, in a feature The Most Awkward Family Holiday Photos, who credit most to the awkwardfamilyphotos site, which has quite a range.

Of the three main party leaders, the one who wins my vote for his card is definitely Nick Clegg, who used a drawing by his kids. Miliband’s family snap, again by Rousseau, is a nice happy family snap, though considerably dragged down by a border of Xmas clip art.

It’s a long time since I felt it appropriate to send out a family picture as a Christmas card, and the only time I can recall doing so, it was a very straightforward and old-fashioned group, more or less one that could have been made as a daguerreotype, and its circulation was restricted to other family members who might have had an interest in how the kids were growing up.

Photographer’s Christmas Cards, sent out mainly to other photographers and possibly clients, are a good opportunity to use your own work, though most of mine have not been even remotely Christmassy. I’ve kept quite a few that I’ve been sent over the years, and have often threatened to post a selection of them on the web.

This year I’m sending a postcard with a detail of one of the images in the Secret Gardens of St John’s Wood show which I just happen to have around. The full image would have been better, but has an aspect ratio that doesn’t fit a standard postcard well. Just so that no one feels left out if they don’t get a print copy, here is the full image now:

Some years I have tried harder and found a suitable Christmas theme in an image. Here are some that I’ve used:

(I can’t remember now which of the dozen or so images I have that I used of the Santas engagement in Trafalgar Square. There is a different one in the 2006 book.)

Everybody Street

If only there were more hours in the day I would spend much more time on American Suburb X, particularly on ASX TV, where every time I visit I find more things to watch ‘later’. One particular series that I have found time for some is ‘Everybody Street‘, segments of a documentary about photographers who have used New York City street life as a common thread in their work. Director Cheryl Dunn was commissioned to make it by the Seaport Museum, New York and it was first shown at the museum in September 2010 in conjunction with the exhibit Alfred Stieglitz New York. Although I don’t really buy the link the museum and film-maker try to make between Stieglitz and street photography – although he was one of the first photographers to take an often hand-held camera out onto the city streets, his intentions were so very different – it is still well worth watching. On the museum site you can view the film trailer and links to clips showing Joel Meyerowitz, Bruce Gilden and Mary Ellen Mark.

ASX has a longer piece on Bruce Gilden, which near the beginning shows him being attacked by a woman who doesn’t appreciate being photographed as well as on Meyerowitz and Bruce Davidson.

Other photographers in the film, some of whom appear briefly in the trailer include Martha Cooper, Rebecca Lepkoff, Jeff Mermelestein, Clayton Patterson, Ricky Powell, Jamel Shabazz, Luc Sante, Tim Barber, and Bonnie Yochelson, and there are links to their work on the Everybody Street page.

Bonnie Yochelson, formerly the curator of prints and photographs at the Museum of the City of New York, is also the author of the book Alfred Stieglitz New York which was brought out to accompany the show, the first collected exhibition of his work on the the city since he organised his own show in 1932. As someone who owns the heavyweight two volume collection of his best works, and greatly admire a few images such as his Terminal I’ve never thought his pictures of the city of New York were his strongest hand, and certainly not the best images of the city architecture (the link to this picture in the Getty collection gives the photographer’s comments on why he took this image; it is difficult for us to look at it as he did then because of the enormous load of nostalgia; years ago I wrote about it being like going down the local bus garage to take photographs, though now I might even need to revise that term to ‘transport interchange’.)

Yochelson was of course also responsible for the fine ‘Changing New York‘ showcasing the work of Berenice Abbott, another photographer like Stieglitz I’ve written about at some length in the past (no longer on line, but you can read a review of the 1997 edition by Elsa Dorfmann) as well as viewing a fine selection of her work on-line at the New York Public Library. Berenice Abbott: American Photographer, with text by Hank O’Neal has of course been on my bookshelf since soon after it was published in the 1980s.

Press Freedom In Court

This morning, NUJ London Photographers Branch member Jason N Parkinson is in Chelmsford Crown Court along with BBC, ITN and Sky News resisting a production order application by Essex Police to hand over all his footage taken during the Dale Farm eviction on 19 and 20 October this year.

It is a vital case for the freedom of the press, as Jason explains very well in his post on the LPB web site. Jason is there with full backing from the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) and legal support from Bindmans Solicitors. Several fellow branch members are in court to observe the proceedings, and have been allowed to Tweet from the court – and I am following these on #productionorder as I write this. At the moment the court is being shown some of his published footage.

Press freedom is vital for democracy, and under threat from various directions here – including at the Leveson inquiry. The case also demonstrates how vital it is for photographers (including videographers) to belong to a union which will support them personally as well as fight for the principles involved.