The Big Nothing

Today was a strange day, after the big protest yesterday everyone expected even bigger protests for today. But it turned out that there were only a handful protesters, twice as many photographers and around four times the police at Bank and at the ExCel Centre.
A lot of people expected disruptions and violence but no one showed up. Over half of the protesters at the ExCel Centre were good spirited Ethiopians. It was strange and a bit disappointing indeed that not much happened. Reminded me of a slogan I read: "What if they gave a war and no one came?"


After my criticism of the police yesterday, I have to say that they were great at the ExCel Centre today, they allowed people to demonstrate and did not bully them around. The police near Bank however was a bit rude in the way they dealt with people, still it was overall not quite the same as yesterday.

"I am a Photographer...NOT a Terrorist"

I took my lunch break early today, to be able to attend and document a protest by british photographers. The protest was called up by the National Union of Journalists and the British Journal of Photography.


It was a protest against a new law coming into force today, it is Section 76 of the Counter Terrorism Act. Under this new law anyone "eliciting, publishing or communicating information" about members of the armed forces, intelligence services or police officers, which is "likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism", can be arrested and imprissoned. This has caused controversy, especially with press photographers, since there have been numerous run-ins between the ploice and photographers in the past.
I know this since I also had a few run-ins with them but it was mostly with ill informed Police Community Support Officers and only once with the police for taking pictures of the Greenwich Power Station.


The protest saw around 400 people gather in front of New Scotland Yard taking pictures of the building, the ploce and each other. It was a nice protest and everyone was in good spirits, the ploice was nice and even had chats with the protesters.


You can read more about this here, here and here.


Although I decided to publish only one picture a day this year and the rest on Dropbox, I think it makes sense to make an exception for series or articles that benefit from more pictures. This is why I have uploaded 5 pictures for today. You can find more pictures here.

Gaza Demonstration

LC1, f6, 1/250, ISO 200, JPG, 75mm

At freezing temperatures I've set myself an objective for the day. It was to go out and cover the demonstration against Israel and the war in Gaza. The turn-out was impressive despite the low temperatures. It was very interesting and I got some great pictures out of it. I have been using the LC1 mostly and the GRD I only for quick snapshots when the slow AF of the LC1 was too much to handle or when the light levels dropped and ISO 400 was just not enough. The LC1 is agreat camera for such occasions since it looks more professional than all the beginner dSLRs and gives one more credibility. One other thing is that no matter how much fun I make about the plastic soap box cameras, in freezing cold you don't want to handle a camera made out of metal without gloves on ;).

Although I had a whole series, one of the changes for the year is to only post one picture per day. I chose this pictures since I find it best summarizes the protest for me.
I went as an neutral observer there and to document the protest. This is why I will not write anything about the actual protest and think the pictures speak for themselves so check out the gallery here.

Between Good and Evil?

GX200, f4.1, 1/200, ISO 64, RAW, 24mm

Took this picture of the protest while walking in the City today. I was not the only one to take pictures of this though, quite a few people took pictures but mainly with their mobile phones. The good thing about the City is that there s always something happening so I like working here for that reason. It is also very interesting if you're interested in architecture photography with a lot of very interesting old and new buildings.
The GX200 is very good for this and has a great resolution but not enough contrast and the dynamic range is too low, this was always a problem with the GX series. The resolution is there and you get a lot of details with little noise at base ISO, especially when using RAW.