Posts Tagged ‘video’

Class War Visit The Rees-Moggs – 2018

Sunday, September 11th, 2022

On Tuesday 11th September 2018 I accompanied Class War as they enacted a short theatrical protest outside the Westminster home of Jacob Rees-Mogg. I think it rather amused Rees-Mogg, who deliberately brought out his family and nurse to take part in it, later milking the event for every last ounce of publicity he could. I was impressed by his performance.

Class War had come to call for the release of Rees-Mogg’s nanny, Veronica Cook, who they say ceased to exist as an independent human 50 years ago and has been subsumed into the Mogg family as if she was being confined in the tower of a gothic mansion.

The playlet involved only six protesters, with Ian Bone as himself wearing a cloth cap, former Class War Westminster candidate Adam Clifford as an impressive Jacob Rees-Mogg, Jane Nicholl as a more fetching Nanny Crook and a giant penis, though this had problems in getting inflated and missed much of the action.

I’d met Class War in a nearby pub, where the performers put on their costumes and then walked along the street to the Mogg house. The performance had been advertised in advance, and family and security were waiting when they arrived and police had a short converstation with Class War who assured them that this would be an entirely peaceful event and there was no intention to cause any damage.

Jacob Rees-Mogg then strode out to meet the protesters, who were not really ready, just finishing unrolling their banner. A loud discussion started, with him being questioned about his nanny and how much she was paid but with him simply welcoming the protesters and refusing to answer. And in the background behind me the woman wearing the inflatable giant penis costume was struggling to get it erected.

After a minute or two, Rees-Mogg was joined by his wife and eldest son, and shortly after the whole family was there with Nanny Crook carrying the baby which she handed to his father. The two elder boys in particular were clearly very interested in what was going on, and at no point in the event did they seem particularly upset in any way.

Ian Bone continued to loudly question Mr Rees-Mogg about the pay and conditions of Nanny Crook, repeating his questions as he failed to answer. After some time he invited Nanny Crook to speak and she told the protesters that she was very happy with the arrangements, though she did not answer about what these were.

They made Nanny an offer of escape, telling her she is paid at below the minimum wage, calling Rees-Mogg a “Slave Owner – The Leopold of the Mendips” and also suggested that she joined a trade union, offering her membership of the UVW. She only smiled, and her employer made clear that she had no interest in the offer of trade union membership.

When nanny pulled down the blind the oldest son went upstairs to watch

At one point Bone turned towards the elder of the boys watching the performance, telling him loudly that a lot of people didn’t like his daddy and giving some reasons for this at some length. One of the protesters captured this on a video which was posted on social media and led to a national outcry from press and TV channels.

While another squeezed in front of the blind

One other journalist had arrived to photograph the event alongside me, and he rushed off to file his pictures which were widely used. I accompanied Class War back to the pub and only filed work later. One picture editor of a major national newspaper later told me he had failed to find my pictures as he searched for “Mogg” but I had used the keyword “Rees-Mogg” among those on my pictures.

Finally the giant penis joins the other protesters

I’d also filed a report of the event, but that was never even quoted, and I was never contacted by the media for my comments, nor I think was the other journalist. Our accounts would have totally contradicted the headlines used about Class War “ambushing” the family, which was simply a media smear.

As I comment on My London Diary:

“Jacob Rees-Mogg and his family were willing participants in what happened in front of their home. Their children did not seem upset, more fascinated with what was happening – and after they had been taken inside and the protest continued had to be dragged away from the windows. One made his way upstairs to continue to watch without being prevented from doing so. Almost all of the media commentary was a deliberate total misrepresentation of what had taken place.”

Class War watch their video in the pub before they upload it

Both Rees-Mogg and Class War revelled in the publicity they got from the event, with Ian Bone being labelled by one opinated right-wing radio show host as “foul-mouthed” for telling the interviewer he was talking “bollocks” when he raved and blustered at the remarkably level-headed, clear and accurate acount Bone gave of the event. I felt he should have added the word ‘absoute’ in front of it but otherwise it was hard to fault.

More at Class War visit the Rees-Moggs.


Debunking digital myths

Monday, August 5th, 2019

You may like to view the 30 minute video in which Tony & Chelsea Northrup discuss what they say are 12 common myths about digital photography, which was recently posted on Petapixel.

But to be frank, I find their presentation pretty nausea-inducing, and even scrolling through on fast-forward with the occasional pause to listen to the answers seemed like 10 minutes of my life wasted. There are some things video is an appropriate format for, but this was just not one of them.

So, what were the myths? I’ll paraphrase, and give my own answers which sometimes differ slightly from Tony Northrup.

Q: Should you fully discharge batteries to avoid a memory effect?
A: Cameras now use lithium batteries and full discharge should be avoided.

Q: Will your memory card be corrupted by deleting pictures in camera?
A: No.

Q: Will using a UV filter improve image quality?
A: No. Adding extra glass may even very slightly degrade IQ, though seldom noticeably. But it can protect the front lens element in tough conditions.

Q: Do higher megapixels sensors have greater noise?
A: Not necessarily, although very high megapixel small sensors on some phones do.

Q: Do medium format lenses give better “compression”?
A: This is just marketing talk. In general larger formats have more limited depth of field which may give a different look to the image, but at apertures that give similar depth of field the pictures will be identical so far as “compression” is concerned. Of course larger sensors generally have more megapixels and lower noise and their larger pixels can give them greater dynamic range. If you want to make giant prints a MF camera will be at an advantage

Q: Does your PC do a better job of Raw processing that your camera?
A: The PC – and viewing your image larger allows you much more control over how Raw processing is carried out. But modern cameras do a very good job in producing jpegs.

Q: Can you edit jpegs?
A: Well, of course you can, and Lightroom in particular seems to do it very well. But avoid repeated saving and later reloading to re-edit them as every jpeg save loses information.

Q: Do you need to turn off Image Stabilisation when using your camera on a tripod?
A: You don’t need IS when your camera is on a tripod, but it may well not make any difference. But it’s probably best to read what the camera manual says and follow its advice.

Q: Are lenses at their sharpest at f8?
A: Probably not. A better rough guide suggests two stops down from wide open, but a stop or two either way is almost never critical. Never be afraid to stop down more if you need greater depth of field or open up if you need a faster shutter speed. Remember many great pictures are not particularly sharp and the great majority of sharp images are not worth a second look.

Q: Is manual focus more accurate than auto-focus?
A: Manual focus is as sharp as you make it, but it is difficult to get focus more accurate than with modern autofocus systems, though you can match this using ‘focus peaking’. Manual focus does have the advantage that the photographer is aware exactly where in the subject focus is – all too easy for autofocus to be somewhere different.

Q: Do Canon cameras give the best colour?
A: Probably only so far as Canon’s marketing guys are concerned. If you shoot RAW, then you (and your raw processing software) make the choices on colour. I’ve used Fuji, Nikon, Olympus and Canon digital cameras. All can produce great colour from RAW files. I usually prefer Nikon, or, if I want a more vibrant look, Olympus, but the others are fine.

The Northrups have carried out some experiments with large groups of people and colour images from various cameras and you can find more details on their site. But for me it’s only my opinion that matters, and I think that which gives the best colour depends on the subject and its colours – it can be Fuji, Olympus or Nikon, but seldom Canon.

Q: What causes memory card faults?
A: A few years ago counterfeit cards were common, and the packaging was good enough at times to fool even reputable suppliers. I was supplied with some and they immediately gave problems. I’ve also bought cards direct from reputable manufacturers which turned out to be not entirely compatable with my camera – and again this showed up fairly quickly. Both times I got replacements without a problem. I think that both these things are now much less common.

Card faults resulting in image loss are now uncommon. But it makes sense to take care never to remove a card while it is being written to and not to get the card contacts get dirty. But as the video says everything does go wrong sometimes – fortunately not very often.

Reading this will have saved around 25 minutes of your life and imparted probably slightly better advice than that in the Tony & Chelsea Northrup video. But I’m sure their many fans will still want to watch it, though I hope if you are reading this you will find better things to do with your time. Why not go out and take some pictures?


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

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Streets & people

Monday, May 27th, 2019

Thanks to PetaPixel for bringing to my attention the video 1838-2019: Street Photography – A Photo For Every Year with 182 photos — one photo for every year between 1838 when Daguerre set up his camera overlooking the Boulevard du Temple and 2019 with activists hassling an MP outside Parliament in London.

It’s a curiously hypnotic experience, with each photo appearing for around 6 seconds, with a musical soundtrack that reflects the changing decades, and a rather strange selection of images by Guy Jones, taken on streets around the world, though majoring on the USA. I found it rather annoying but I couldn’t stop watching, though I did turn the volume right down.

Almost all of the pictures certainly are taken on streets and show people, but it rather reflects the lack of any real integrity in the term ‘street photography‘. And while the pictures do reflect the changes in technology over the years, any real historical oversight is entirely prejudiced by every picture from the 20th and 21st century being presented as colour – which for most means a recently colorized version of an original black and white picture. Some colours were rather less than believable. This is faux history in the making.

You’ll probably recognise a few of the pictures, and some of the photographers, but mixed in with these are some rather anonymous postcard views, press images and amateur holiday snaps, which don’t always seem particularly appropriate to represent the year in which they are taken. It’s in a way a very uninformative video; often I found myself wanting to know more about why a particular picture was taken and what it it shows. And for those taken in more recent times I did wonder whether Jones has permission to use the images from the copyright holders. I hope so, though I saw no closing credits to indicate this.