>Re:PHOTO Peter Marshall - Thoughts on Photography

UK Customs

I won’t comment on the Brighton show by seven-year-old Carmen Soth (with a little help from her dad, Alec) , because I’ve not seen it. Part of the Brighton Photo Biennial, (BPB) it goes on show at the Brighton Museum & Art Gallery from Oct 2nd – Nov 14th 2010 and you can read rather more about it in The Guardian. I first heard about it on Soth’s Little Brown Mushroom blog, where you can see Carmen’s shooting list.

Soth came to the UK around the end of March this year with his family to work on a commission for Brighton, but on arrival was told by an immigration official that as he didn’t have a work visa he could not do so. The official threatened him with immediate deportation, but finally let him stay for a holiday with his family, warning him that if he took any pictures he could get two years in jail.

So he went around with Carmen, who had his digital camera and took the pictures with a little help and advice from Dad. But I guess if she comes back to the UK she’ll be facing those two years banged up in Holloway.

It’s a story that illustrates the mess we are in over immigration, where government and opposition have for years been engaging in a bidding war to see who can look toughest for the right wing press. But it also threatens the right of all journalists to report on events in other countries – or at least on those from other countries to report on what is happening in the UK.

Frankly I’m amazed that neither those running the BPB nor Magnum of which Soth is a member had the right connections to get an incandescent Tessa Jowell on the line from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and a few heads bashed together at the UK Border Agency, the decision reversed and the official concerned given a rather stiff reprimand.

Practically we now seem to be one of those countries for which you need a second passport that does not mention your profession as a journalist or photographer and which you need to enter as a tourist in order to carry out your job.

Actually I think the show may well be worth a visit. Years ago I gave my son, then around the same age, a cheap plastic ‘Russian’ camera when he would sometimes accompany me taking pictures. I think he produced some more interesting results then than he sometimes does now.

I wrote an article to go with some of his pictures and submitted it to the Amateur Photographer, with some silly title like ‘Easy, Peasy, Shutter Squeezy‘. It was the only piece I sent them that they didn’t publish, the editor telling me that they felt their readers might feel insulted by seeing that a seven-year-old could do better than them.

Agence France Presse v Daniel Morel

Like many photographers I have a very clear view about the unauthorised use by AFP of Daniel Morel‘s images from Haiti.

Pure and simple theft.

It’s hard to see that AFP have any legal leg to stand on, having taken Morel’s images without permission from Twitpic and distributed them, in clear defiance of the copyright terms. The only way for them – and others who have used these images without permission – to restore any credibility with photographers is for them to issue a fulsome apology and pay up. With any luck the Southern District Court in New York will come to much the same conclusion before too long.

You can read more about the case in a summary in the BJP 1854 blog which also discusses the more than curious interventions of Visa Pour lImage photojournalism festival founder Jean-François Leroy, which it would be over-polite to call total nonsense.

You can read more about that on Duckrabbit, which has made a sensible response to his comments and has printed his reply to that.

Leroy argues that his response is similar to that of an insurance company. Perhaps so, but if so it is the kind of insurance company that goes to incredible lengths to find something in the small print that enables it to wriggle out of its clear moral responsibilities.

It’s hard to see why a previously well-respected figure like Leroy should take the stand that he has, supporting what seems a very clear breach of the law, and certainly actions which prejudice the rights of photographers and their ability to properly recompensed for their efforts.

Theft is theft. Really all there is to this case.

Getty Images became a sponsor of Visa Pour lImage in 2008. Getty is one of the few companies that have sided with AFP in refusing to compensate Morel. Many are making the connection between Leroy’s position and the interests of his sponsor, and he needs to do something positive in the interests of the future of the festival – even if it might mean losing sponsorship.

Surely it’s time for Leroy too to throw up his hands and say sorry, I hadn’t really understood what the case was about, and I got it wrong. If not before, I hope the court’s decision will be clear and will persuade him to do so.

Apprentice Boys in London

I’ve photographed various Protestant marches London over the years including the Apprentice Boys of Derry London Campsie Branch Club Annual Parade which takes place in late September. This year it just happened to coincide with the Pope’s visit, and to allow the protest against that to have a rally in Whitehall, the Apprentice Boys had to make an early start.

As with many events, the most interesting time is usually before they start, when people are usually in more interesting groups and also you can get closer to them and work from wherever you need to without getting in the way.

So this picture was taken just as they were getting ready to move off in 2006, and I’m standing right in the middle of two lines of men on the street. And in 2008 I made a whole series of pictures outside the pub where some of them were before the march, as well as others on the opposite side of the street.

That year I did at one point find myself being pushed away by a very large man with dark glasses suggesting it would be very unhealthy for me to keep taking pictures. But I think I was able to convince him that I wasn’t working for a communist newspaper and that he had mistaken me for someone else – and I didn’t point out the person standing just a few feet away who did fit the bill. But generally I’ve got a more positive reception and often received some appreciative comments from people who’ve seen the pictures on My London Diary.

This year, when I got to the meeting point half an hour or so before the march had been timed to depart there was no sign of anyone. I wondered if I had got the date wrong, but decided I hadn’t. I got on the tube and went to Westminster station as I knew they were heading for the Cenotaph, and as I came out of the station there were some barriers along the centre of the road so I knew that a march was coming. It’s hard to run along the streets that are full of randomly moving tourists, but I did my best and got to the Cenotaph just as the laying of wreaths was beginning.

I was held up slightly by one police officer who insisted I got back on the pavement as I came up Whitehall towards the Cenotaph. It seemed entirely pointless, but I didn’t have time to argue, so went across and then back into the middle of the road a few yards further on to take pictures.

As I got towards the back of the marchers taking a rest on Whitehall I was greeted by one of them with “We wondered where you were!”

I took a few more pictures as they moved off and past Big Ben, but it was hard to get what I wanted, and the scaffolding covering much of side of the Houses of Parliament didn’t help.

More pictures from this year on My London Diary. There are a few I like but I think 2009 and 2008 were rather better.

Pope Protest

I was surprised that over 10,000 people turned out in London on 18 September to protest against the state visit by Pope Benedict. It was obviously a pleasant surprise for the organisers too, and too much for the police to take in. They were reported as saying at a briefing before the event that they expected 2,000 and quite a few people published that as the actual turnout. Too many reports and comments in the press come from people who aren’t actually present at the events they are reporting on.

Photographers have to be there to take pictures. Even when newspapers use stills taken from film or TV coverage, the guys who made those have to be there. To photograph events you have to be in the thick of it, while it’s not unknown for writers to work from a nearby cafe or hotel room.

But many of the events I photograph are good places to be, where people are enjoying themselves, having some fun together while also making a serious point. Quite a few times there were placards that made me laugh, and some were a reminder that humour can be a powerful weapon.

Several of the speakers at the rally had everyone laughing too, though others were starkly serious. And at times I remembered that the women who were speaking about being abused as children were the ones who had managed to survive and flourish despite what they had suffered, and that there were others whose lives are still in a mess many years afterwards.

Most of the speakers were impressive. Richard Dawkins, who so often seems to comes over as a simplistic and blinkered atheist in radio interviews seemed far more impressive when allowed to develop his thoughts without constant questioning an interruption.

Barbara Blaine spoke powerfully in front of a placard with a picture of her as a young girl in her white first communion dress with the message ‘Raped at Age 8’.

You can read my account of the march and also see my set of pictures on My London Diary as always.

As often, when I was photographing the protesters before the march,the light was against me, as they were lining up with the sun behind them, though it was usually possible either to keep it out of frame by choice of angle, or to hide it behind a person or placard, but it made fill flash more or less essential. I’d probably have been using it anyway, usually a stop or more down so it has only a slight effect, but does ensure that people notice me. The first frame I take may often catch them unaware (and sometimes I turn the flash off to take several that way) but generally the flash catches their attention.

I was photographing a group of demonstrators protesting against child abuse by Catholic priests, among them a young woman with a placard ‘Where is the Love’ high above her head. I took several frames of the group, then one of another woman in the group with a placard ‘Your Taxes Paying For His Bigotry’ and then moved towards her, trying to work out if I could make a picture with her head and her placard a couple of feet above. Instead I got this picture:

She pulled down her top more or less immediately but a had time to take a couple of frames before we both more or less collapsed in giggles. I had no time to adjust the camera settings, so although she was very much exposed, the picture was a little underexposed thanks to the light pouring in from the bright sky.

“What was that about?” her friend asked and she wasn’t entirely sure, but she had intended it as a gesture of liberation against the sexual repression of the Pope and the Catholic Church.

I took a few more pictures of the group, and it was one of those later images that I actually used with my story that evening on Demotix, because I felt its message was clearer. Someone said to me later in the day when I told them the story, it would have been great had I been working for ‘The Sun’. But the bare flesh involved here wasn’t the kind of empty and gratuitous nudity which they and the Daily Star parade, but a political gesture.

Congratulations Ed!

I didn’t have a vote in the UK Labour leadership election, despite currently being a member of two trade unions. I’ve never bothered to re-join the party after they threw all of us Labour students out in the sixties (when I suspect the main attraction for me was getting to know Barbara Castle) and I didn’t vote Labour at the last election.

In fact I don’t really think it’s sensible to have politicians at all, not in the way that we do – career politicians like all of the current party leaders and I think all of the candidates for the Labour post. I’m not quite sure how my ideal system would work, but it would certainly involve politicians having had lengthy experience of working in the world before being allowed to run the system.

But over the years I’ve been photographing events I’ve met and photographed quite a few politicians, and there are some I’ve admired and others I certainly wouldn’t trust to run a scout troop let alone a country.

Ed Miliband is one who surprised me last year when he came out from his ministry and argued seriously with protesters outside over the government’s energy policy and the choices he had to make. I wrote about it at the time both here on >Re:PHOTO and with more pictures on My London Diary.

I’ve photographed many protests outside government and company offices over the years, and this is the only occasion I can remember where the guy in charge has actually come out, invited questions, listened to them carefully and tried to answer as best he could, giving them around a quarter of an hour of his time, rather obviously to the dismay of his staff.

I didn’t agree with much of what he said, and he didn’t have real answers to many of the problems, but his attitude impressed me. Had I had a vote, he would have been my first choice.

Agrofuels Protest

I’m sorry not to be at Portland today, for the national protest organised by the Campaign Against Climate Change (CACC) calling for a stop to Government subsidies for Agrofuels and deforestation. The protest is at the proposed site of a new palm-oil burning, agrofuel power station at Portland in Dorset.

Part of the reason for my not being there is simply the cost of transport, as living on the edge of London it wasn’t really feasible to join the coach organised from central London, and going to Weymouth (the nearest station) by train from here seems to be very expensive. But also I’ve got other problems at the moment, as well as there being other events I’d like to cover.

But although I couldn’t make it to Portland, I did cover the issues in a central London protest by CACC last week, when they delivered two boxes of postcards to Energy minister Chris Huhne at the Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC) in Whitehall.

Chris Huhne himself didn’t appear, though his face mounted on a stick appears in some of my pictures, but there were a few protesters with placards, and arriving at the end of the lunch-time photo-call, a woman in an orang-utan suit.

As well as the lunchtime event, there was also a similar early evening demonstration again outside the DECC with a few speeches, and then later a rather larger meeting with more speakers elsewhere which I didn’t stay in London for.

There were no great problems in taking the photographs, though the lighting was rather uneven, and I think almost everything needed fill flash. I worked the entire press call using the 16-35mm, though at the later rally I needed a longer lens for the speakers and a little light rain didn’t help.

This isn’t as yet a subject the media have found any interest in, and although a press release had gone to all the usual papers and agencies, I was the only photographer to turn up. My story appeared later in the day on Demotix, but wasn’t picked up elsewhere. Even on Demotix, with my usual posts on Facebook and Twitter, the story hasn’t generated a great deal of interests, having only been read so far by around a tenth of the audience who will see this post today. More pictures and text on ‘My London Dairy‘ shortly.

But the article – and this one – is all a part of a long, slow process of building up awareness of the issues. I had to ask to be reminded about ROCs (Renewable Obligations Certificates) which lie behind these subsidies for unacceptable forms of energy production – as well as promoting proper renewable solutions. The ‘Deforestation Certificate‘ shown in some of the pictures perhaps makes things clearer, and other placards drove home the basic message:

Agrofuels drive deforestation drives Climate Change.

As I said to the organisers, to get the media interested needs some kind of stunt (or involving celebrities) and perhaps today’s events at Portland will do something to make it more visible. Just being a vital issue that could seriously challenge our future isn’t enough to make any issue “news.”

Autumn Again

I looked at the weather this morning and was glad that I wasn’t celebrating the Autumn Equinox, as the forecast wasn’t good and it was raining steadily. But more importantly I had to be a little over 20 miles away, waiting at home for a new gas water heater to be delivered, and it arrived more or less at the time of the annual celebration by The Druid Order at midday on Primrose Hill, while the rain was still falling here. I hope the Druids were luckier.

Last year when I took this picture it was a fine day, and there were white clouds in the sky which help to even out the lighting, as well as giving the occasional patches of shade.

The weather was good too when I photographed the event in 2007, and perhaps made a better job of it.

It isn’t a difficult event to photograph, though it helps to have some idea of what is going on – as with most things. I’ve photographed The Druid Order a few times and a number of them have liked the pictures which helps, but like all such events you have to show a proper respect.

Although at times I may seem to be on the inside in these pictures I always respect the circle of druids and work from outside using a long lens when necessary. The Nikon 18-200mm (on DX) was very versatile for working here, with the second most useful lens probably being the 10.5 mm semi-fisheye used for the middle picture above.

Nikon do at last seem to be realising that it isn’t enough to produce cameras and bringing out some new lenses, particularly new lenses for the FX format – the 16-35mm and the newly announced 24-120mm f/4G ED VR, 28-300mm F/3.5-5.6G ED VR, 55-300mm F/4.5-5.6G ED VR, 35mm f/1.4G, 85mm F/1.4G and 200mm f/2G ED VR II. These are lenses that should have been available when Nikon launched back to full frame format, and I think may have come too late.

The big news at Photokina this year came from Fuji, with their sort of range-finder Fuji X100 expected to be available in March 2011 for around $1000. Many of us are already drooling over what looks like a replacement for the beloved Konica Hexar F, and also excited by the thought of an interchangeable lens model to come after this. But whether or not this emerges, the development by other manufacturers of Micro Four Thirds cameras such as the Panasonic DMC-GH2 is making many of us wonder if we can reduce the load on our shoulders.

When Nikon went digital it said that the DX format could give photographers all they needed, and they were probably right, although marketing and competition meant it was inevitable that they follow Canon along the “full frame” route. But both now may be left behind by the new generation of smaller electronic viewfinder cameras, leaving FX and DX DSLRs looking like those expensive dinosaurs still emerging as ‘medium format’ digital cameras. Of course they have their uses, just as 8×10 film cameras do, although most of the things they are used for could be done just as well by smaller lighter and cheaper cameras. Of course these just would not impress clients anything like as much.

Al-Quds Day March

I’ve photographed the annual Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day march for several years, certainly since 2006, and although the march itself has remained basically the same, it has become much more controversial, with various groups now demonstrating against it. Al-Quds Day was started by Ayatollah Khomeini soon after he seized power in Iran in 1989, and is organised by the ‘Islamic Human Rights Commission‘, seen by many as financed by and representing the views of the Iranian theocracy.

Of course other groups and individuals are involved in the march, not just the IHRC – and although that apparently receives funding from the Iranian government it does at times seem to produce valuable reports. Its an event that supports the Palestinian cause and I think it would be better if a wider range of organisations adopted it and joined in – as do for example the Neturei Karta ultra-orthodox Jews.

Sometimes its hard not to see stereotypes – and rather fun to do so.

But I do try to take something a little different, and was pleased with a few of the images that I made. You can see more of them on My London Diary.

But for most of the photographers present, the main story was not the march itself, but the opposition to it by the English Defence League. Here again I tried to tell a slightly different story, though it wasn’t easy as you can see in my next post.

EDL and Iranian Greens Protest Al Quds March

The English Defence League (EDL) complain that they get unfair treatment from the media who often depict them as a racist and fascist mob. I’ve tried to report them accurately and present a slightly more nuanced view, but at times they don’t make it easy.

Although some of the leaders of the EDL try to avoid racism and extremism, clearly they are unable to control the more extreme of their supporters, some of whom have been or are members of racist and fascist organisations and others clearly hooligans.

The EDL is one of a number of allied movements that bring together disaffected elements from a largely white working class who feel alienated from the political parties and government and neglected by them (don’t we all.) Where in the 1930s this might have taken them to the left (though Mosley too had his supporters) the left now seems to have lost the ability to make links with ordinary working people.

During the Al Quds Day march, many of the EDL supporters were chanting obscenely Islamophobic slogans and singing Islamophobic songs which make a nonsense of their claims not to be against Muslims in general but only against extremism.

A couple of days before the march a ridiculous ‘fatwa‘ had appeared on one of their web sites attacking the press and promising violence against them. And during the event in Grosvenor Square a number of them came and made threats against some of the press who were photographing them from the other side of a police line. Neither or which is likely to endear them to reporters and photographers.

During the march in Park Lane, a full but open beer can was thrown by one of the EDL demonstrators, landing on the roadway a few feet in front of me and bouncing on to miss me by inches, going between me and another photographer a couple of feet away and then hitting a woman on the march, though fortunately by this time it had lost most of its force after a couple of bounces, and she was not hurt. It seemed most likely it was aimed at the press (and me in particular) and could well have caused serious injury.

Earlier I had photographed a small group of EDL supporters being held by police behind a bus shelter and being prevented from demonstrating against the Al Quds Day march. I did feel it was an unnecessary restriction on the right to demonstrate, though the police did I think allow them later to make their way down to an area the police had designated for the counter-demonstrators.

The march turned round just before the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane, and the police had made a pen for them at this point. Part of this was occupied by around 20 members of the democratic opposition in Iran, the Iranian Green Movement, whose poster ‘Down with Dictator‘ linked Ahmadinejad, Galloway and Saddam.

Next to them was a larger group of perhaps 80 people behind a number of EDL-related flags and banners. As well as various versions of the St George English flag, there were also Union Jacks, an Ulster Flag and an Orange Order Flag along with an Israeli and Portuguese flags. The only banners I could read read ‘Jerusalem will never be Pisslamic‘ and ‘Al Quds = Nazi Terrorists – Get Out of UK‘

I tried to walk across and photograph the counter demonstrators but was prevented from doing so, first by an EDL steward, and then by police. So all my pictures at this point were taken from the other side of the wide road – with focal lengths up to 300 mm. The EDL had made it clear to the police that they didn’t want the press near them and had threatened that they might be attacked if they came closer. I feel the police should have told them that the press had a right to report and that the police would make sure they were able to do so rather than go along with the threat of violence.

Later in Grosvenor Square we did get near the EDL demonstrators – separated only by a single line of police – and there were a number of threats made towards particular photographers by EDL supporters – as well as a few more friendly approaches. And, after a while some of the EDL did perform for the cameras – and said “There, you’ve got your pictures.” Yes, we had – but don’t blame us for the behaviour of the EDL.

As I wrote in my report of the event (which you can read on My London Diary, along with more pictures):

It is really very simple: if any group wants to get fair treatment by the press, all they need to do is to behave in a reasonable manner. Photographers in particular don’t make things up, but photograph what is there.

Flying Visit

Years ago when I was photographing London’s Docklands I needed to get a picture with a plane taking off from London City Airport. The first time I wasn’t quite happy with what I’d got and I had to wait almost an hour for the next aircraft to appear.

London City got planning permission because they promised to have only a very limited number of flights and to use small quiet turbo-props that would take off at a steep angle and thus cause very little noise. How things have changed. Over 90% of the flights now are by noisy jets leaving the airport at lower altitudes and they already have plans to expand to 176,000 flights a year – almost 500 a day. Had levels of this kind (or the current level) been stated at the initial planning inquiry their would have been little chance of the airport being built in what is one of the most densely populated areas of the country.

It’s become a favourite place for the wealthy owners of private jets, as well as running scheduled services but is now aiming at a much larger market. It started very much as a premium service for rich businessmen who could avoid the lengthy delays at normal airports; your taxi from your city office could drop you at the airport door ten minutes before take-off and you could rush through the lounge passport in one hand, briefcase in the other and still catch your plane. Now you can get there on the DLR and need to allow a little more time as increased security and larger passenger numbers slow things down a little. But check in times still seem to be in minutes rather than the hours at Heathrow and Gatwick, so it’s perhaps not surprising it is getting popular.

Which is bad news for local residents – and the reason for their protest group ‘Fight the Flights‘ which is mounting a legal challenge against Newham Council’s approval of a rise in flights from 91,000 to 120,000 annually in the High Court this November.

The airport was set up for short haul flights, mainly to continental cities, but now serves a wider range of destinations including New York (check in time for BA customers with hand luggage is 15 minutes!) But the most contentious of these are domestic flights such as the services to Manchester from here and the other London airports – currently 38 flights a day.

From central London to central Manchester by train takes around 2 hours 7 minutes – and there is a train every 20 minutes during much of the day. The flight from either Gatwick or Heathrow – including checking – takes from 10 to 20 minutes longer, and the journey times from the airport at both ends are likely to add considerably more. Even with flights to Glasgow, the train journey of 4 h9m compares pretty well with the flight time from London City – including minimum check-in and exit times – of 2 h35m when you include the travel times to and from the airport.

But Saturday’s demonstration was not about convenience but about climate change. A typical rail journey from London to Manchester results in 15.9kg carbon dioxide per person, while the flight produces 52.8 kg – more than three times as much. Add in the amounts for the journeys to and from the airport and the difference is even greater.

We don’t need short domestic flights, the noise and hydrocarbon and other pollution they cause around the airports (air pollution around where I live near Heathrow is often above the accepted limits for various pollutants) both blights and shortens our lives. But man-made climate change has far more serious effects on the poor around the world through the destabilisation of climate that is already becoming evident through the increasing incidence of droughts, floods and hurricanes and rising sea levels. It is also the poor who are most threatened by the aviation industry’s attempts to move to using agrofuels. Almost all biofuel production is at the expense of the environment, clearing forests to grow fuel crops such as palm oil, or diverting land that was previously in use for food production, accelerating the rises in food prices, so that the poor starve.

The Campaign Against Climate Change demonstration wasn’t a large event, but the issues it raises are vital ones. Aviation is the fastest-growing source of greenhouse gases and it’s thus important that the richer countries such as ours tackle it and find ways to slow and eventually reverse its expansion.

© 2010, Peter Marshall
John Stewart of HACAN and Anne-Marie Griffin, chair of Fight the Flights
with campaign plane and banners

Photographically I couldn’t find a great deal to do, though the protesters did have an inflatable jet with some suitable slogans, and there was someone dressed as an air hostess with a label on her back ‘UneasyJet’. And of course the people involved.

Later my favourite mermaid appeared too. But I wanted to photograph her along with Phil Thornhill of Campaign Against Climate Change standing at the front of the top deck of the open top bus as it made its way towards Trafalgar Square. Easy enough to organise if I had time and money, but not when you get the idea and want to do it straight away.

One thing I often mean to bring with me but usually forget (it doesn’t quite fit in my camera bag) is a monopod. Given that and a remote release (which I don’t own) it would have been fairly easy. But I had to do with leaning backwards over the front rail of the bus, holding the D700. I took a few holding the camera at arms length, though it was hard to get the right angle. All the time I had to work with one arm, holding on tight with the other as the bus was bumping along the road.

You can see more pictures – and more about the demonstration – on My London Diary.