>Re:PHOTO Peter Marshall - Thoughts on Photography

The Queen’s Terrace Café

Fifteen years ago, I joined a now defunct organisation called London Arts Café, a charity which had been set up with the aim of running a café that also acted as a nucleus for the promotion of urban art in general, and art about London in particular. One of oddities of this registered charitable company – of which I later became a director – was that it never quite managed to open a café, although it did produce a whole series of exhibitions, a fairly regular publication, Art & Cities, and a series of interesting visits, workshops and other events, many of which were recorded on My London Diary.

One of the highlights of many of these events was the fine food provided by the founder of the London Arts Café, Mireille Galinou, for example at this picnic at Trinity Buoy Wharf, an arts centre opposite the Millenium Dome. It was never quite the same after she gave up her position both running the organisation and catering for it.

More recently, Mireille has produced an excellent book on St John’s Wood, Cottages and Villas: The Birth of the Garden Suburb, published last year by Yale University Press (ISBN-10: 9780300167269) and it is in St John’s Wood that she has finally realised her ambition of opening a cultural café, The Queen’s Terrace Café, just two minutes walk from St John’s Wood station, at 7 Queen’s Terrace NW8 6DX, and a few yards down Queen’s Terrace from Queen’s Grove.

The Queen in question was of course Victoria, and the café is the ground floor of a former historic pub in a rather splendid terrace built by James Sharp in 1847 (perhaps looking a little too much like a heavily decorated cake for my taste.) Pevsner‘s London 3: NorthWest mentions the fine plaque on the wall naming it as the ‘Knights St. Johns Tavern’ (as well as the nearby monstrous Eyre Court in Wellington Road.)

The café is open to the public from today – Monday 4 April 2011 – and is open Monday to Saturday 9.00 – 18.00. I was fortunate to have a preview yesterday, and to enjoy a fine salad followed by some excellent cheeses and coffee for lunch, as well as viewing an excellent group of four large paintings by Mark Cazalet, his Four Quartets, inspired by the poem of T S Elliot, but using urban motifs from London, including Regents Park, the Thames at Hungerford Bridge and Westway. There were also five smaller works by him on display.

As well as aiming to offer good food at affordable prices and a great atmosphere, the café will be arranging a series of events – exhibtions, guided walks, studio visits, workshops, talks and demonstrations aimed at encouraging local residents to discover more about the area in which they live, and its ‘historian in residence’ will offer advice to anyone interested in researching the history of their house or street.

The lighting there was rather nice, with the front wall covered by tall windows which have been white-washed to above head height, and I took a few pictures of the interior. It is a nice space for displaying large works like the group of four in the current show.

I just wish St John’s Wood was rather handier for me, but it isn’t really my kind of area and I seldom go there. But perhaps I will find my way there rather more often now.

March 26 South London

Although there were no real problems photographing the ‘Armed Wing of the TUC’, and certainly no hassles with military security, it wasn’t too easy to get good pictures. One problem was that tall banner stating ‘Capitalism Isn’t Working’, great on its own but so good at hiding the five horses behind it, breaking the whole parade along the street very much into two parts.

Of course I could photograph the horses separately, and I did, and there was a short period when the banner was lowered when it needed fixing and I had a few seconds to try and take a picture.

After we reached Kennington Park, it took me a while to find anything to photograph, as very little was happening. There was also the problem that while I like to photograph things as they are with a little chaos, perhaps like this:

as soon as people saw me taking pictures they wanted to pose with their banner. So of course I take their picture doing so, though I’m unlikely to use it. Things were a little easier once the speeches started as instead of standing around in small closed groups people turn round in the direction of the speakers, and if they are concentrating on what is being said take little notice of the photographers.

Again, once people actually start marching, photography becomes easier too, though I often find myself telling people not to stop, to keep walking while I take their picture.

It was a dull day, and most of the time I had been mainly working without flash, although I needed it with a few pictures, mainly where otherwise faces would have been in deep shadow, as when people wear hats with large brims. As you can see, I chose to use it on the picture above, and some of the others on the march, really just to bring people out from the background a little, although often in post-processing I then have to burn them back down.

You can now see rather more of the pictures I took in Camberwell and Kennington last Saturday in 26March: Armed Wing of the TUC and 26March: South London Feeder March on My London Diary.

April 1 Winogrand

On Joerg Colberg‘s Conscientious web site you can read all about the forthcoming publication of ‘The Complete Winogrand‘. Perhaps what really made me sure I was reading it on April 1 was the suggestion that he only took 300,000 pictures!

But elsewhere on the web – or if you take a trip to the Quad Gallery at Derby before May 8 – you can really see some of Winogrand’s colour street photography. I first came across these on Facebook, but I think it’s better to look at them on Nick Turpin’s sevensevennine blog, where they are accompanied by the answer given to Turpin by Joel Meyerowitz about Winogrand’s attitude to colour (the pictures are from Meyorwitz’s personal collection.) In essence I think Meyerowitz suggests that it was the problems at the time over colour printing that led to him not making a great deal of this work, although he happily showed slide presentations of it.

It is an interesting set of 20 images that clearly relate to the concerns of his black and white work, and I think – though I’ve not tried it – that several of them would probably be better pictures in black and white, while others clearly need and use colour. There are two of his colour images, dated ca 1963, in Bystander, but I think neither is a particularly good example of his work.

Looking at his newly published colour pictures, perhaps the first thing that hits me is how poor the colour is, that faded filmic look (which I know some love.) For me it is a barrier that I have to get over to see some of these pictures, though there are one or two it suits rather well. I’m not sure why they are like this, but if it reflects the prints that he had made back then I think he was generally right to stick to black and white.

Arts Council Cuts Side Off

I’ve never been a great fan of the Arts Council (AC), at least not since the late 1970s, when after a few years where they seemed just about to be getting the idea about supporting photographers and photographic publications they changed their policy to support institutions and curators. Even then, photography has never rated high on their agenda, reflecting a UK establishment that has never understood or valued photography.

For my first thirty-something years as a photographer I was able to say that I’d got more support from the AC’s poetry budget than from the visual arts; it hadn’t been a large amount, but I’d been paid on several occasions for supplying photographs to a poetry magazine funded with AC money, and it came to rather more than the few small exhibition grants I’d received. Mostly I’d chosen to organise and show in group shows which didn’t qualify for any support. And of course I’ve always been happier working outside institutions and the establishment – very much a part of the reason why I put a great deal of effort into the web from 1995 on.

But the AC has over the years supported a number of photographic institutions, some fairly lavishly, and others rather less so. Some very much more generously than they deserve – I think one gallery was at one point being subsided to the tune of more than £100 per person who walked through the doors, and many of their decisions appear more based on political than artistic criteria.

As a photographer the gallery that would come top of my list as the most important for photography in the UK has for years been Side Gallery in Newcastle, the only gallery in the country dedicated to documentary photography. And until now it has done so with the help of the AC. The decision announced yesterday to axe the grant for Side is a real kick in the teeth for photography in the UK, something that every photographer here should feel as a deep insult to our medium.

The reasons given for the decision are frankly ridiculous. The first reason they give is about governance – Side is a collective. So the AC isn’t going to fund it because it is actually run by people who are creators.

Secondly that the gallery needs AC funding and therefore isnt sustainable. To me this is an illogicality that beggars belief. The whole point of the AC would seem to me to be that it should be funding projects and institutions that would not otherwise be sustainable. I doubt if any of the other photographic institutions still funded by the AC would keep running – and certainly not running at anything like the same level – without that money. And if any could manage without, surely when cash is short, the AC should be cutting the funding to them.

The third AC argument that there are too many galleries dedicated to humanist documentary photography in Sides geographical location is quite simply false. It can only be understood if the AC are arguing that one such gallery – Side itself – is one too many. Because as Side point out in their more detailed response to the decision, the AC itself in its assessment

acknowledges that Side is the only dedicated documentary photography space in the north east. There is in fact no other gallery in the country dedicated to the crucial narratives of humanist documentary. This uniqueness and cultural importance in Side Gallerys work was amply made in a powerful and moving set of testimonies from internationally renowned photographers, which was attached to the National Portfolio application.

I don’t have any personal connection with Side, a gallery which I think I have only visited once on a fleeting visit, as Newcastle is rather a long distance from where I live, and I think I have only ever made two short visits there. But Side has been important to me, through the many exhibitions it has produced over the years – including shows which have come to London, because of the books that I have bought or read, photographers I have met, and in more recent years particularly through its web site and the Side Photographic Collection, much of which is available on line.

It is a unique resource, and one that is more than simply one for the north-east, one that is nationally and globally significant. I can only think of two other photographic institutions of comparable significance in the UK, and Side is the only contemporary one, the others – the Fox Talbot Museum and the RPS Collection – being of historical significance.

You can read more about the AC funding decisions and about the campaign to support Side Gallery on the British Journal of Photography. It is important for the photography community to get behind Side and show its support.

Please sign the I LOVE SIDE GALLERY! Petition – http://to.ly/9Vjw

Libyans Say Thank You to Cameron

Last Thursday lunchtime around 500 or more Libyans came to demonstrate opposite Downing St, not like most demos to condemn the Con Dem alliance, but to thank them for their support of the ‘no-fly’ policy. They appreciate David Cameron’s efforts to persuade the UN to adopt the resolution that enabled French, British and US forces to take action against Gadaffi’s planes, tanks and heavy weapons.

The people of Benghazi feel that it was only this intervention that saved many of them from death, with Gadaffi’s threat to take action against them street by street and alley by alley being very close to being put into effect as his tanks were poised on the outskirts of their city.

Libyans supporting the revolution and the Interim Transitional National Council running Benghazi and other areas that have broken away from Gadaffi’s rule have little time for the opposition of the British left, although they seemed also clear that they wanted to set very definite limits on the foreign intervention, and that eventually they will have to liberate their country themselves.

So although they very much welcomed the efforts the British government has made so far, they have other demands, particularly for recognition of the ITNC as the legitimate government of Libya, but also to be able to import the arms and ammunition that they need to carry on the fight.

Perhaps the left instead of simply calling for an end to the UN resolution backed military intervention should now be pressing hard for the kind of policies that would enable Libyans to stand up against Gadaffi and defeat him. Without the bombing of the last week it seems almost certain the Libyan revolution would have been crushed by now, at least for the foreseeable future.

It was a lively event, and one where people were very keen for me to take pictures, although just a little daunting to look at the packed mass of men noisily protesting. But once I had jumped in, everything was fine. Getting under the giant flag did give some exposure problems, and most of the pictures I took using flash came out over-exposed (these systems either seem to work perfectly or really mess up, with little in between, and often it is very hard to determine why things go wrong when they do.) In the end all of those I’ve used were taken without flash. Bright sunlight in the background and the shadow under the flag were rather extreme and needed quite a lot of persuading to produce the picture shown. The background was more than 3 stops overexposed, the foreground probably a stop or two under. The result above was a quick fix, and could be improved. Theoretically digital may have less latitude than negative film, but usually post-processing can usually more than compensate and I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t have managed this on film.

It was all very much heat of the moment – I was only there around 6 minutes in all, I had hoped to go back and do some more but they packed up and left before I could do so.

Prix Pictet

I’m pleased to announce I was wrong.

In November, in the post Pictet Growth Shortlist I wrote:

I probably shouldnt condemn any of them to oblivion by naming them as my favourite for the prize, and in any case I think it should receive rather though more than my quick first impression. Particularly because it isnt just a matter of a single image, but really of a set of pictures, and that does need more consideration. But Mitch Epstein has long been one of my favourite contemporary photographers, Guy Tillims work I always find of interest and the show by Taryn Simon was one of the best in recent years at the Photographers Gallery. The only work that really appeals that was new to me was by Nyaba Ouedraogo. So probably those four are now the outsiders in the race!

Though when I actually saw the work on the wall in Paris I did change my mind a little, perhaps because I wasn’t entirely happy with the printing of Epstein’s work and there was one really interesting image by Burtynsky (see Thursday Afternoon in Paris 3e for my visit to the show and elsewhere.)

But despite my recommendation, Epstein has won, and you can see a slideshow of his 12 images, along with his accompanying text on Lensculture. The first image there, of Amos Coal Power Plant, Raymond, West Virginia 2004, is the one that really caused me to have doubts when I saw it in Paris; to me the colour just looks wrong, particularly the grass (and I’m viewing it on a colour-corrected screen with a background image of a grassy hill next to a window that looks out on a lawn.)

I’m actually pretty sure it is wrong, because Mitch Epstein states in his Lensculture piece that he and his wife, writer Susan Bell, have created a web site to share this project, What is American Power? And the first image on this is also Amos Coal Power Plant, Raymond, West Virginia 2004, but in subtle and beleivable (and probably realistic) colour. While the Pictet print – both for real and on the web – more resembles the kind of early inkjet prints we used to get before people had sussed out things like colour management.

It’s worth looking at the work on the web site, though I found the performance with swirling prints between each picture incredibly maddening, and really had to grit my teeth to click the next button each time. I can’t tell you how many pictures there are or get any real idea about the work as a whole because I couldn’t force myself to sit through more than around a dozen images. I can’t see any point in this kind of demented web design.

ESOL Day of Action

Just posted on My London Diary are my pictures from last Thursday’s ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) Day of Action.
© 2011, Peter Marshall
ESOL students and lecturers at Downing St

It was a very fine day for the time of year, but started really slowly, and for some time I wondered if my journey into London had been worth it. But things soon livened up, particularly with one very vocal group of students, mainly fairly young women, arrived and began to shout the slogans that had been provided as one of several educational resources on the web site for the day of action.

At least one of the other photographers had left before they arrived, and certainly missed the rally where many of the students spoke about how essential the ESOL classes were for them, where I very much enjoyed photographing both speakers and audience.

The event seemed as if it was over by then, as although they were going to take a letter to Downing St, the police had advised that they go there in small groups rather than march as a body. So I’d actually left and gone to photograph another event taking place opposite Downing St when I saw the bulk of the ESOL students coming down the road and rushed across to take more pictures, including the one at the top of this piece.

There was a very dense crush outside the gates to Downing St, making it rather difficult to move – hard to get far enough away to photograph these outstretched arms, even with the 16mm on the D700.

It’s in really crowded situations like this that I like to use the 10.5mm fisheye with the D300 (perhaps one day I’ll get the 15mm which does a similar job on the D700.) I took a number of pictures, but I think the one at the top of this piece is the best. Fortunately I’ve managed to get Lightroom to stop automatically correcting the fisheye effect while still correcting for the vignetting and chromatic aberration (of which there is plenty.) The example here benefits from the way the fisheye curves in the placard at left and particularly the tree at right, although for some images a small amount of distortion correction or an appropriate filter does help. All of those that are in ESOL Day of Action on My London Diary are uncorrected.

I hope the government can be persuaded to see sense over ESOL and realise the real value these courses provide, both to the individuals who take them and also to the country that benefits from the contribution that they enable these people to make. But unfortunately they seem bent on appeasing the racists and taking a very negative line on anything concerned with asylum seekers and refugees in particular and immigrants in general.

March 26

I don’t usually write here about the posts that I make on Demotix, preferring to wait until I have had time to take a longer look at the pictures I took and to sort out more of them for My London Diary. But it may be a little while before I get those from Saturdays events in London on-line here, while I spent most of Saturday night and Sunday writing stories and uploading images to Demotix.

Saturday was a long day for me, and not without its problems. Everything started fine and I arrived at Camberwell Green in time to watch the final preparations of the ‘Armed Wing of the TUC‘ who then proceeded to march to Kennington with their Trojan Horse, tank, Spitfire, the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse, armed Lollipop Ladies and the large ‘Capitalism Isn’t Working’ banner.

We walked to the South London Feeder March for the TUC demonstration (though for reasons best known to itself the TUC disowned all of the feeder marches) at Kennington Park, a location of some importance in the history of the labour movement, where there was a short rally before the couple of thousand or so there marched off to join the main march.

I left them after a few hundred yards to take the tube from Kennington into Charing Cross and went to Trafalgar Square. I should have been there before the TUC march according to the published timetable, but they had started early and were already streaming past when I arrived. So I spent an hour or so taking pictures of the marchers and the other things happening around Trafalgar Square then – and also took some more pictures of the march which was still passing around four hours later when I was at Piccadilly Circus. But both times included I probably saw fewer than a quarter of the approaching half a million on the march, so I called my Demotix feature Glimpses of the TUC March.

Then I saw the black bloc of anarchists taking a different route and followed them for the next 45 minutes or so. They were not really doing a great deal most of the time I was with them, and the police seemed largely to be ignoring them. I read a newspaper report that they “broke through” a line of police at the bottom of Regent St, but most of them simply walked by on the pavement which the police were not blocking, and the police made little or no attempt to stop the few who kept on the road.

Many of the protesters walked round police line on the pavement

A couple of police followed the group up into Regent St, and then down Conduit St. One anarchist account says they took this route as police were about to kettle them on Regent St, but there was really no sign of this happening, with just a few police in the distance. They let off a few fireworks and flares, and on Bond St a few made a rush towards a branch of the RBS, but the dozen or so police standing outside soon pushed them away. A few light sticks from placards were thrown and some paint sprayed, but little else.

On Oxford St they made a more deliberate attempt to rush into Topshop, but there were quite a few police as well as security men inside the shop. A lot of paint was thrown and there were scuffles as the police arrested one young man. I took a number of pictures of police holding him on the ground and then moved slightly back. Suddenly I felt a thump on my chest and found I had been hit by a ball of yellow paint, probably aimed at the police just behind me (although later some photographers were certainly deliberately targeted.)

I kept taking pictures for a few minutes – although both cameras were splattered with paint, there was none on the lenses and they were still working fine. Most of the photographers around seemed to be taking pictures of me now, and I’ve seen one on Flickr that gives a good idea of what I looked like. before retiring to a nearby public convenience and wiping and washing off as much paint as I could. You can see my pictures of the black bloc in Anarchists March on Oxford St, although events with them did get a little more interesting after I had left them.

Though I’m not sure why so much media attention is directed towards this very small group – really just a few hundred – and their activities. Though I would like it if the BBC and others actually took the trouble to find out who was who and what things were about, having just watched a video in which the BBC presenter refers to them as anarchists, Socialist Workers Party and UK Uncut. Or is it a deliberate policy to misunderstand and mislead?

A ball of emulsion goes a very long way, and although I wiped as much as I could off my jacket, the surface of my jumper, both cameras and elsewhere I gave up with a great deal of paint still on me, and feeling rather uncomfortable with a a slab of wet paint in my vest, shirt and jumper soaking my chest.

I spent the next hour or so with the very different UK Uncut who were holding peaceful protests, an outdoor comedy show and a party in and around Oxford St. Being covered in yellow paint is quite a good ice-breaker, but I hope to avoid it in future. There are a few pictures and some text at UK Uncut Party and Protest on Oxford St.

The I left with one of the groups that was making its way to a protest at an undisclosed location (following the red umbrellas) which turned out to be Fortnum & Mason’s, although I didn’t get there. At Piccadilly Circus I was feeling a bit fed up and decided it was time to go home and clean up, though I did hang around for a bit and take pictures of the TUC marchers still passing by.

Despite some of the stories in the press and broadcast on radio and TV, the UK Uncut action at Fortnum & Mason remained non-violent and the protesters were very careful to avoid any damage inside the store. Outside was apparently a different story, with other protesters having what several people have described as a riot, with some injuries to both protesters and police.

But when, by arrangement with the police, the UK Uncut protesters filed quietly out of the store, they were all photographed, handcuffed and arrested, and most at least were held in custody for around 24 hours before being released.

These peaceful and restrained protesters against tax avoidance and evasion made up the majority of arrests by police over the whole day. Few if any of those rioting on the streets were picket up, and I think most of the other arrests followed an unprovoked attack by police on people partying in Trafalgar Square later in the evening. I wasn’t there but have read the tweets and comments of friends who were, as well as what appears to be the most reliable account of the day’s events yet to have appeared in a major publication, by Laurie Penny in her New Statesman blog. Here she comments:

“With the handful of real, random agitators easy to identify as they tear through the streets of Mayfair, the met has chosen instead to concentrate its energies on UK Uncut – the most successful, high-profile and democratic anti-cuts group in Britain. “

This is a piece that has clearly hit a number of nerves among those who weren’t there and show little or no understanding of what is actually happening on the streets of Britain today, but although I may not always like her style, most of what she writes rings true.

I was I suppose lucky that I was only hit by paint. One of my colleagues was hit by a brick, needing nine stitches – and was lucky that it just missed his eye – and another had his camera smashed.

I’m not sure I’ll ever get all the paint off of my gear, but it still seems to be working fine. Given that they were already pretty worn it isn’t a great problem. I did have some anxious hours when the D700 stopped working after I’d been scrubbing it a bit too much and some water had penetrated, but it recovered after I’d dried it for a few hourse3 in front of my computer fan. Most of the clothes I was wearing are ruined, although I’ll perhaps keep the paint stained jacket and trousers for covering protests where similar things might occur.

Stewards – March For the Alternative

I’m pleased to see that the NUJ London Photographers Branch has issued a ‘Statement To March 26 TUC Stewards‘ which will be read out at the stewards meeting before the ‘March For The Alternative‘, reminding them that “stewards have no legal power to push, move or obstruct journalists recording the event” and that reporters “should not be corralled or directed as part of the demonstration.”

It is perhaps surprising to read the TUC web site for stewards, which for many of the lower level Travel and Route Stewards is the only training they will have had, and find no mention there of photographers and journalists, when the TUC should be making clear to them all that we are fellow union members with a job to do.

Stewards should be given guidelines perhaps similar to those agreed between the police and journalists in the published ACPO Police-Media Guidelines although they of course rightly enjoy much less power than the police.

Stewards at some other large marches have been less than cooperative with the media. Like many other photographers I’ve on several occasions been assaulted by Stop The War stewards and at one march was among a large group of photographers who felt so aggrieved at the way we were being kept away that we sat down on Park Lane and stopped the march until we were allowed to do our job.

From the various reports it would seem that the TUC are determined to try to control the march as much as possible, although it seems very unlikely they they will manage to do so given the various other groups who will be taking part in the protest on the day. The march is after all billed as the ‘March For The Alternative: Jobs – Growth – Justice‘ and it is only to be expected that the alternative groups will demonstrate some of their views of the alternative on the day. I think it is likely to me rather more alternative than many in the TUC would like.

Since the unfortunate displays by police at the student protests in November and early December the police do appear to have been making an effort to police demonstrations in a calmer and more balanced manner – and to have taken seriously the comments that I and many others made about their failure to communicate with protesters. So I’m hoping that this will continue tomorrow.

What does not give me great confidence is the appointment of Commander Broadhurst as Media Liaison Officer – you can see a video of him talking about the press and demonstrations made by Jason N Parkinson at the 2009 NUJ Photographers Conference. I was standing just a couple of feet to his side photographing him while he spoke (I needed to get rather closer than I might have liked because the only lens I’d taken with me was the 20mm – having agreed to photograph the event I’d forgotten to add a longer zoom to my bag when I had to leave home rather early that morning!)

His performance there was I think a low point in police-press relations, and I think he realised it. You can read my thoughts at the time – and see more of the pictures in Can Anyone Apply for an NUJ Card who has a Camera ?

Westminster Council Should Be Ashamed

I was appalled when I heard that Westminster Council were proposing to make it an offence to offer food to the homeless, and even more so when I found that they also want to fine those sleeping on the street in their borough up to £500. Of course if people had £500 they would not be choosing to sleep on the street.

When I heard that a protest was being organised against the proposal I was keen to photograph it and try and get as much publicity as possible for the opposition to the by-law.

The afternoon started with what was advertised as a Flashmob, but rather to my surprise people turned up early and stood around chatting, waiting for it to happen. Which it duly did at the specified time, with people getting horizontal on the pavement as Radiohead’s ‘Just’ started and keeping flat on the ground until the song ended.

Then we all went back to Westminster Cathedral plaza, where a number of people had been sleeping rough – and some were woken by the music as tables were set up and food to give away loaded onto them.

Usually at public events I photograph those taking part without thinking at all about their privacy – they have chosen to be there and act in public, but this was perhaps rather different. I decided that I did not want to take pictures – or at least not identifiable pictures – of those who were sleeping rough without being reasonably sure that they were comfortable with being photographed and having their pictures used.

The free food was available to anyone who wanted it – I’d eaten on my way to the event so all I had was a couple of crisps, but those eating included some of those who hand it out at various ‘soup kitchens’ and other events around Westminster as well as passing tourists and the homeless.

But I think the pictures I took were more powerful because of that decision, which made me concentrate on how to communicate rather more than usual. And I did photograph those people who were clearly happy to have their pictures taken.

Later I looked at work by another photographer from the same party, which was very different to mine, concentrating on the homeless people who came to it. I’m sure that he took his pictures with respect for the dignity of those he photographed and with their permission, but I still felt a little uneasy about the work. It seemed somehow to stigmatize them rather than draw attention to the issues and record the event as I had tried to do.

You can see my report and more pictures at Don’t Make Compassion Criminal on My London Diary.