Confrontation On Parliament Square
Category
Documentary
Location
London, UK
Gear
Canon R6ii, EF 17-40mm f4
Description
This is an image I have complex feelings about. On the surface, it shows a protester shouting at police who stand ready to take action against a possible threat. The violence here appears at first glance on the part of the protester. The full story is almost the opposite. This was taken during the second mass-arrest protest held by Defend Our Juries to defy the proscription of Palestine Action. Thousands of people crowded Parliament Square making it very hard to move around. The police had attempted to create a “sterile zone” in the corner to the square where this picture is taken. They would send out a group of officer to arrest a protester and carry them back to this spot, pushing past others in the crowd. Moments before this image was taken, the protester in the striped t-shirt had been pushed to the ground by police charging through carrying a protester. As he stood, he stumbled into the police line and fell over again after being pushed back by the police. As he stood, he shouted at the police line, many around him holding him back, the woman in front of him physically holding him back and pleading for him to calm down. The police officers stood ready to repel him again if he lurched forward. However, he fell backwards and seemed unable to speak, his eyes unfocused and clearly not well. The police initially hesitated before realising the situation had changed from possible violence to medical emergency, they quickly took him behind the police lines to paramedics. I’ve often hesitated to publish this image, it feels too easy to misread, taken at the height of the tension the apparent narrative is opposite to the events that happened. Presented in context of the story, I think this has become a reminder for me about how selective photography is in what we choose to depict and how. In my first edit of this, I cropped the camera in the bottom right out of the image, feeling this made a cleaner edge, but I chose to keep it in as a self-referential element to reflect how small and selective a moment this is in a much bigger, more complex story.
Photographer
Peter Speller
Social Media
Website: www.petespeller.photo
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