Free Burma Protest, London
October 6, 2007
By now I’m sure most people are aware of the situation in Burma, at least in relation to the on-going protests for democracy. Here in London there have been mini-protests all week such as this one outside TOTAL Oil’s offices, due to their involvement with the military junta in Burma.
The police were present including one with the huge camera that usually makes an appearance at larger protests. The other policeman was taking notes. I’m not quite sure what the point of that was; I could hardly foresee any trouble at a protest involving a couple of well-behaved demonstrators!
Today marked the biggest Burma protest in London with over 10,000 people taking to the streets in support of the Burmese. Ironically, I didn’t see any policemen with cameras.. hm.
Red ribbons had been handed out at the start to be tied around the head.
I always find it amusing how others take pictures. I’m sure his composition was great 
The protest was tame and fairly calm until it arrived on Westminster Bridge, where there was suddenly a frenzy of photographers and camera crews rushing to get pictures of the monks.
This is the first protest I’ve been to where there’s been such a mad rush of photographers shoving each other to get pictures. It was quite remarkable. I don’t really have a picture that conveys just how many photographers were present, simply because I’d already been elbowed, shoved, and trodden on, and damn, if a photographer wants a picture, they’ll do whatever they can to get it.
At one point I was pushed 3 times by a female photographer trying to get a picture of a placard. I ignored her and carried on walking assuming she was simply, well, attempting to get a shot that she deemed important. On the 4th shove which made me stumble, I asked her what she was doing. She asked me if I was a press photographer, and when I said no, her response was ‘well then move out of the way’. Excuse me miss, but this is a public place and I can stand where I want. If I’m in your way, say so, don’t push me repeatedly! I wasn’t deliberately trying to block her – the person holding the placard just happened to be walking adjacent to me. No one appreciates being pushed to the point of almost falling over. Jeez.
I walked past her later where I took a picture of her (yes, it’s out of focus). She asked me what my problem was and I told her that courtesy goes a long way. I don’t expect people to ask me politely in the heat of the moment to move, but her attitude was way out of line. She told me ‘too many tourists’ get in the way. I suppose since my wages don’t depend on taking pictures, I can’t really relate to her. I bumped into a lot of photographers, all of whom had no problem, and who simply smiled, or apologised, or asked me to move. To push someone 4 times to get a picture of a placard seems a tad extreme. I asked her who she works for – The Sunday Times apparently. I wonder if any of her pictures will be in the paper tomorrow.
Brian Haw watched as the protest passed by him.
I saw a few of the monks break away from the main group so I followed them across the road to Downing Street.
They tied ribbons to the gate.
Again, a mass of photographers followed.
All I could capture was the shot above, but I was literally surrounded by a group of them a few rows deep. It made me wonder if any of them would get a unique shot.
The monks returned back to the protest which was nearing Trafalgar Square.
It’s Richard!
The monks gave a speech..
..as did Glenys Kinnock.
I thought the shot below was cute. I gestured to the one on the right to pass me his cam so I’d take a picture of him on the stage, but I don’t think he understood. That, or my gesturing skills are rubbish. I’d say the latter.
He simply giggled when he saw me take a picture of him.
I’m not sure why I like the shot below, but I do. I’ve previously taken a picture at that exact spot.
So, that’s it. I love taking pictures at protests, but don’t really enjoy the pushing and shoving aspect to get those pictures. I guess it doesn’t help that I’m relatively small compared to the other photographers with their numerous SLRs each with massive lenses. It’s a health hazard I tells ya!
It’s great there was a large turnout for this protest. Hopefully it will count towards changing the future of Burma for the better.
How interesting. I was looking at my site statistics and the key words that bring people to my site when using search engines. It appears that doing a Google search for ‘sex pics in odd places‘ brings up my site as the top result! one of the results! (OK it was top until yesterday ¬_¬)
Lovely.
EDIT – OK it’s back to 1 – but then since I’ve just mentioned it in this blog it’s bound to come up now even if it didn’t before – doh. Oh well!
My Nikon EM seems to be playing up lately. The light meter hasn’t been working for a while but images usually turn out decent. Now the batteries have stopped working so I used the M90 setting which resulted in a few decent pictures, but the rest of the roll (Ilford FP4 – 125) was completely screwed up.
Example of said screwness:
Disappointing – particularly since she didn’t want me to take her picture and held the placard in front of her face, then slowly lowered it thinking I may have gone, but being the sneaky, devious photographer that I am, I waited and.. SNAP. Only her eyes were visible – I loved it.
Attempt to fix picture in GIMP (curves, levels, contrast, despeckling, sharpening blah blah):
As you can see, my hearty attempt just doesn’t cut it – the picture couldn’t be saved with any amount of editing 
Feel free to prove me wrong though!
Some of the more decent pictures:
Brian Haw taking a nap, or avoiding talking to me. I do like this one.
There always seems to be random protests in Parliament Square like this one about pensions..
.. and this one
The man just sat there in a suit with those signs. I crossed the road to get a better picture which didn’t come out (surprise surprise) – he refused to look at, or talk to me. He just shook his head and looked quite disturbed.
Oh, and notice the nice light streak that decided to grace the image for that extra special touch.
These are all negscans by the way, and self-developed. I say self, but I didn’t actually develop them myself
Now for some street artiness.
So those were basically the only images on the roll that look somewhat normal. I’m going to be using a fully manual film cam (Nikon FM) from now on which should produce muuuch better results.
Back to colour and my slightly more reliable 350D.
Katie
I haven’t converted digital images to black and white in a long time, and when I have, its usually by using the channel mixer tool, but Kev sent me a very cool PS plugin which converts images to b&w by simulating tones made by various film, which is interesting to play around with.
This is using the Ilford Delta 100 option. Not bad I think! Definitely better than desaturating 
She has the brightest wardrobe I know of
I don’t remember who took this shot of me – fancy!
Our BBQ skills aren’t the best
On the bus, these guys noticed me on the upper deck and bowed, so I aimed my cam at them and they did the whole ‘I’m gonna try and look cool even though I work in a crap fast-food place’ look.
Just another London shot
People taking pictures is always fun to watch
I was seriously considering having a go on this:
Wimbledon this year was.. well the next shot kinda sums it up
This was actually the queue for taxis which was bigger than the queue to get in. We decided not to bother which was a wise idea – there were torrential downpours soon after. Besides, I’d already had my Andy Roddick fix for the summer 
On the way to the station we came across this guy
His name’s Nigel and I’ve seen him on the Tube before. He wanted to demonstrate his serve technique. This is apparently how McEnroe serves, so he told me.
He asked me if I wanted to sign his cape, so I did.
Then a policeman asked him to leave. Gotta love London oddballs.
Some shots from Dublin now.
One to full-view. Too bad there’s so much reflection.
This was €300
How people use stuff like this, I really don’t know.
Abstractness
Another for the collection
In the Guinness Factory, members of the public could leave messages on a wall. Mine was simple and straight to the point.
Yeah for spammage!
Guinness is disgusting
The views from the top of the building were nifty
At the airport – getting massages as people walk by. This was a hip-shot – not bad eh!
I was also in the Channel Islands for a couple of days, starting with Jersey.
Mmm
Seagulls are clever things.
I was on the phone as I took this – hence screwy focus
I flew from Jersey to Guernsey. I’d heard the planes are small, but this was not what I had expected.
It was tiny! That’s the pilot getting into the plane.
I sat literally behind him
It was a very cool 20-minute ride, with just 3 of us in the plane, including the pilot.
He told me they have to continue using these small planes because the runway in Guernsey isn’t big enough for large planes.
He also said they use the planes to transport coffins from Alderney and some of the smaller islands to Guernsey/Jersey as there’s no cemetery there.
There were no coffins on this one though. That would have been a tad freaky.
Approaching Guernsey
It’s a pretty small island, as you can see.
Landing was shaky..
That brown bag was mine – checking in was obviously pointless!
Guernsey is a very cute and friendly place.
‘Shrooms this way’? I asked someone else about that sign and they didn’t know either.
Full-view this next one!
Hm.. still not found
It’s weird – I saw posters in Amsterdam and now here in Guernsey. It seems like everyone knows what this girl looks like, yet she’s nowhere to be found.
Back in London and back in the office
They were snooping around Facebook and looking at a certain picture of me – won’t say what it was, but this pic says it all to me
More gathered around..
Facebook is insane. What would the world do if it crashed? I think some of my friends would need therapy.
Being creative with some of our merchandise
Wow, long blog once again.
Thanks, if you got this far I’m looking forward to shooting fully manual – watch this space for piccies!
