{"id":1373,"date":"2011-08-04T16:16:31","date_gmt":"2011-08-04T16:16:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=1373"},"modified":"2011-08-04T16:16:31","modified_gmt":"2011-08-04T16:16:31","slug":"pro-choice-protest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=1373","title":{"rendered":"Pro-Choice Protest"},"content":{"rendered":"

The threat to change the law on abortion brought protesters to protest opposite parliament last month. There were quite a few men present, but it was mainly women, and of all ages and types. Naturally as a photographer I was particularly drawn to those of more dramatic appearance, and in particular one woman who held the main banner reading ‘My Body My Choice<\/em>‘ but it was largely her bright blue spiky hair that drew my attention, although her tattoos and t-shirt helped.<\/p>\n

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So you will see rather too many pictures of her in my work from the day in Pro-Choice Rally at Parliament<\/a> posted at last on My London Diary<\/em>.\u00a0 Of course there were plenty of other people to photograph, and I did so, but it is rather hard to miss someone like this.<\/p>\n

For this particular picture I had to get up on tip-toe to photograph over the banner she was holding, very carefully framing to show the face and fist on her t-shirt and also I wanted to get the text ‘Women must decide their fate<\/em>‘ at the top right of the picture.<\/p>\n

There were also plenty of placards of all sizes, and the mini-placard appears to have caught on, as this picture shows:<\/p>\n

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Something about the message on this one made me laugh, and I think my comment about it made the woman holding it laugh as well. I can’t remember exactly what I said, but I think I was glad she had a sense of humour. Another of these minute placards had what was almost certainly the longest caption of any at the protest:<\/p>\n

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Just in case you’re finding it a little difficult to read, here it is in full:<\/p>\n

What Do We Want?
\n<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Properly Resourced, Funded and High Quality Sex and Relationships Ed and Sexual and Reproductive\u00a0 Health Services For All People.
\n<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When Do We Want It? Now! <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Unfortunately I couldn’t find a way to really make a good picture of it.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the placard that amused me most was this:<\/p>\n

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It also has in the background what I felt was perhaps the most important issue in the whole controversy, a call for evidence-based health policies, a point mentioned by several of the speakers, including the only man brave enough to speak, at least while I was there. This was a doctor, the former MP and Liberal Democrat science spokesman Evan Harris. Facing him as he spoke was a woman in a green hat holding up a placard ‘Politicians Make crappy Doctors!’ You can see her in my picture but I couldn’t find a way to really make her stand out as I wanted. Although it had been a fine sunny afternoon, by then a heavy shower had begun and many people had their umbrellas up, and after taking this picture I decided it was time to leave.<\/p>\n

\"\u00a9<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The threat to change the law on abortion brought protesters to protest opposite parliament last month. There were quite a few men present, but it was mainly women, and of all ages and types. Naturally as a photographer I was particularly drawn to those of more dramatic appearance, and in particular one woman who held … Continue reading Pro-Choice Protest<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-own-work","category-political-issues"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1373\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}