Pictures Visit
This week I went to watch a 4K restoration of Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” based off a book by Anthony Burgess. It began at 8pm on Friday night so I sat there and endured the difficult parts of the film that I always find difficult to watch but enjoy it for the messages that it sends today and would have sent in 1971 when it was originally released.
Police Prang
After the movie ended I left the “pictures” and jumped in the car, I had to pay a visit to my parents in Monkmoor so I headed up Monkmoor Road only to be greeted by a number of blue lights in the road on top of police vehicles. As I carefully drove around the collection of flashing beacons I noticed a scene of a police Vauxhall Astra that had collided with a Blue Kia C’eed. With my Canon G7X Mk II in the car, (I’d left my 5D at home), I thought I’d stop and document the scene.
I parked in a nearby car park and went back with my little compact camera, upon arriving I found that the police car had been damaged from the drivers door to the rear of the vehicle, with the rear offside wheel being pushed around under the back bumper (fender if you’re in the US). There didn’t look to be anyone injured so I set my camera on pedestrian crossing metal railing and took a few photos along with a couple of short videos. I was wary, as I’d had a problem photographing the police many years ago, see this post:
Little did I know but at this moment, about a mile up Monkmoor Road, there was an incident involving armed police officers looking for a suspect who was thought to be armed with a knife or firearm.
After finishing taking some images and videos I drove to my parents’ house and nearby was a group of police cars, some unmarked and one dog unit with the kennel empty, looking around I could see them over the fence of a nearby school so had a quick squint at how they’d got in. They’d used a telescopic ladder and were scouring the grounds fo the school for this armed suspect. I decided not to hang around and left them to it.
Upon returning home I posted my photos to facebook and also uploaded them to the local newspaper, the Shropshire Star. That’s when I started hearing that all manner of events were happening around the town on the same evening.
The next day I was on the way to the NEC at Birmingham for the Photography and Video Show and Nick Humphreys from the Shropshire Star phoned me to ask if they could use what I’d uploaded along with the credit. I of course said yes, it’s no bother and then it went online in the web edition of the newspaper. Whether it ended up in Saturday’s print edition I don’t know.
I also uploaded the video footage to youtube and that can be seen here. It’s not brilliant but it does show the damage to both cars.
Photo Show
Once I’d got to Birmingham, I wandered around the show a little bit, bought some new Peak Design “Slide” and “Cuff” straps that I’d needed for a while. It wasn’t a great show if I’m honest, it wasn’t that busy, there weren’t as many smaller retailers there and not nearly as many visitors, but that’s hardly surprising with Covid and the reluctance to go into crowded indoor spaces. I kept my face covering on all the time in the show whilst I saw very few other people doing the same. I’m not bothered about that, it’s their choice but I feel safer for now wearing a face mask. They were checking Covid Passes on phones or Lateral Flow Testing people if they had no proof. It wasn’t a highly publicised fact that you needed proof of double vaccination or a negative lateral flow result so there were a few annoyed visitors.
In the show I did see some awesome images in the Street Photography International (SPi) exhibition that made me laugh out loud, (I don’t use LOL) as they were really cleverly timed. I’d recommend looking the images in this page (the Volcano, Statue shooting pigeon, and dog’s head and body, were the images that I guffawed at)
On the Canon stand was a little presentation room and I saw a presentation by Vladimir Rys about his time as a Formula 1 Photographer, he had some stunning images on the screen and also some good messages about failing leading to success and taking his time to get the images he wanted, not the images everyone else gets. If you get a moment, I’d recommend checking out his website here. It was very entertaining how he explained his boss used to give him a single roll of film for a football match, two if it was a derby match and if it was a final he’d also get a roll of colour film. Heh heh, how times have changed…
People
A few hours had gone by so I fitted my new strap to the camera and jumped on a train to Birmingham New Street to have an amble around Brum and take some Street Photography images. It was busy and there were lots of things to take pictures of. With my “Drive” set to multiple shots I managed to put 750 images on my compact flash card for the day. There were many pictures of morris dancers, skateboarders, people resting in the church yard and interesting faces in the crowd of shoppers and tourists.
Protest Pickle
One particular part of the aimless ambulation that was interesting was a protest march by people against the Covid Vaccines and the mandatory vaccination of both adults and children. It was fascinating to see the different people from all backgrounds who had come together to have their say on this very divisive issue. I have my opinion and I generally keep it to myself to avoid confrontation with either side of the debate but it was unusual to see the spectacle that paraded through Centenary Square.
I chose to take photos of the parade as there were some provocative banners and people holding them, it was fine and nobody was upset that I was doing so. There was even a point when a group of women I was photographing in a reflection chose to pose for me, and I felt uncomfortable with this as though they were employing me to take their side (or more importantly “a” side) in their debate. It seemed that I was detached from the controversial argument until they engaged with me and I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about it.
- If I was selling them the images, then that would be purely professional, but I probably wouldn’t, so as to remain impartial.
- If I was selling to a newspaper then I’d be impartial but concerned about whether it might be used for pro-vax or anti-vax messaging.
- By posting it on my social media page, I’d be almost publicising the protest and possibly help spread the anti-vax message further, without an equal and balanced post for pro-vax.
Feel free to leave a comment in the box, as to what you think I should do with the images of the anti-vax campaigners?
At the same time, I do feel it’s important to document events, as per the police vehicle accident. If these events aren’t documented they might be lost in time like tears in rain (ahem) and I’d hate to think that I wasn’t helping to create a record of historical events.
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