Condoleezza Rice visits Liverpool, protests ensue

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petemc

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On Friday I was at the Stop the War protest in Liverpool for Condi Rice's visit. It was my first real war rally. I arrived at about 4:30ish, an hour before it started, so I could get a parking spot. There was already a line of police and about 40 protestors. I started getting some shots and testing out the conditions. Overcast skies, boo. So I put the flash on and experimented with the aperature. I wanted to try and capture the moody sky and the protestors to add to the drama. It was a good lesson in flash photography. I quickly learned that I should be using the flash whenever I'm outdoors just so I can compensate and get a balanced exposure. I know its obvious but when you don't do enough outdoor photography you forget these things. As you can probably tell this isn't exactly clever flash usage. Its a HDR styled image from 1 raw file. The settings I used were -1.2 exposure, 0 exposure and +1.2 exposure from Raw Shooter. I then used Photomatrix Pro to generate a HDR shot and tweaked the tones. Then I loaded it into Photoshop and applied some processing to it to get this final shot.

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The second shot from the Condi Rice protest in Liverpool. I love this shot. Its got everything really. The tiny baby making eye contact with the viewer up to the dramatic sky behind the cathedral. I love the range that HDR processing gives you. Great detail in the photo from the ground to the sky.

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This was a prop the protestors were using. I find it quite a moving shot. Just a coffin on the steps outside a cathedral. Makes you wonder what the hell is going on.

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I believe this group of people were protesting about the Guantanamo Bay situation.

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The group starting their march down Hope Street towards the Liverpool Philomonic Hall. There was a lot of activity around this. Photographers, reporters, camera men, and me. It was quite a rush to be in the thick of it. You always see these situations on the news and actually when they did show this on the news I saw myself. That was rather cool. You really don't have the time to compose the shot and check your settings. You kinda just have to shoot and hope. I'm sure the pro's there all had perfect settings and got great pictures.

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I'm not entirely sure of the significance of the doll in this photo. I'm sure you will notice from these shots that there were quite a few different messages the protesters were trying to get across.

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An usual view of the aptly named Hope Street. Protestors hoping to make their voices heard as Condi Rice turns up for some performances at the Liverpool Philamonic.

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One of the protestors rallying the crowd. This isn't a HDR shot. I tried it for fun but it didn't work.

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Another non HDR shot. The crowd gathering on the steps by the cathedral. Really handy way of showing all the people and their banners.

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Back to the HDR styled shots. Another one on Hope Street. I think you can quite easily get their message :)

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This shot gives you an idea of the amount of police that they had. 2 lines of police then a further line on horses. You can see why too as the crowd was quite vocal.

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One of the more vocal protestors. She was wrapped in what looked like an American flag and was shouting various chants to get the crowd motivated. Some of the police found it funny and some of the time they went too far and had to be warned.

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Man you should be touting these to the news agencies, magazines, papers... someone!

Excellent stuff.

Edit: just noticed the 'friday bit' . Maybe process them a bit quicker ;)
 
A fantastic piece of photo journalism there :clap: Very well processed and documented.
 
RobertP said:
Man you should be touting these to the news agencies, magazines, papers... someone!

Excellent stuff.

Edit: just noticed the 'friday bit' . Maybe process them a bit quicker ;)
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Yer. It took me most of Saturday to. Takes a bit of time to go through 450+ shots weeding out the best then HDR'ing them. Plus is was my first time doing HDR so I wanted to take my time getting them right.
 
Cheers guys :) Its funny. I applied for a job as a press photographer the other week and they turned me down. They said that I didn't really show enthusiasm for photo journalism, even though the job said you don't need any experience. Oh well, their loss :)
 
petemc said:
Cheers guys :) Its funny. I applied for a job as a press photographer the other week and they turned me down. They said that I didn't really show enthusiasm for photo journalism, even though the job said you don't need any experience. Oh well, their loss :)
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id go back to the company and bowl these pictures at them, they're the ones missing out!
 
Great set of photojournalism images. Get a portfolio and his them again.

Good luck!
 
another good set Pete

want to expand a bit of HDR for those that are not aware of it?
 
Yeh what is HDR???? :ponders: High? Definition? Realism?
 
Huh. Thought most people knew of HDR. Its a popular thing these days and I'm sure I've seen plenty of people here using it before now. I'll whip up a guide and post it.
 
the first 3 the last one and the one of the crowded street all really stand out for me. a great set of images telling the story very well, and a nice expansion to your already varied portfolio :thumb:
 
One word Pete...SUPERB !
They really do tell a great story. As someone above said, go back to that company and show them these.
Brilliant work :clap: :clap: :clap:
 
petemc said:
Huh. Thought most people knew of HDR. Its a popular thing these days and I'm sure I've seen plenty of people here using it before now. I'll whip up a guide and post it.
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I'll look forward to seeing it :p
 
A cracking set of pics there, just a quick bit of advice, when sending in pics to newspapers you have minutes not hours to do so and always remember to put your contact details, name and date and caption in the file info section.
Here are a few links.

http://www.tslpictures.co.uk/captioningimages.html

Good overview of IPTC and keywording

http://controlledvocabulary.com/imagedatabases/iptc_naa.html#whatfield

Finally The Associated Press guidlines

http://www.ap.org/apserver/userguide/upload.htm
 
There are some really good shots there. You're intention was to catch the drama and you succeeded. You certainly can't tell me that you've no enthusiasm for photojournalism, they didn't use their powers of discernment did they!, well their loss. :bum1:
 
Boo said:
There are some really good shots there. You're intention was to catch the drama and you succeeded. You certainly can't tell me that you've no enthusiasm for photojournalism, they didn't use their powers of discernment did they!, well their loss. :bum1:
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Yer its funny as they told me off for shooting gigs too. They said that every student does it as its so easy. They complemented me on my technical ability but that comment was quite harsh as I've seen other peoples gig photography from similar gigs that I go to and mine definetly have that extra something. Some people eh.
 
petemc said:
Yer its funny as they told me off for shooting gigs too. They said that every student does it as its so easy. They complemented me on my technical ability but that comment was quite harsh as I've seen other peoples gig photography from similar gigs that I go to and mine definetly have that extra something. Some people eh.
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Mmmmm makes you wonder if they would say the same thing to an already established famous photographer or treat them the same way :ponders: I think not! :annoyed:
 
excellents shots very powerfull :thumb:
 
Ally said:
Great shots :thumb: really show the power and amount of passion in the whole affair. Was it true that she never saw any of this ?
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We just about saw some cars pull up and the crowd went nuts which is what provided me with the last photo. Then it calmed down and 20 mins later I overheard someone on the phone say Condi went in the side entrance. Typical.
 
We just about saw some cars pull up and the crowd went nuts which is what provided me with the last photo. Then it calmed down and 20 mins later I overheard someone on the phone say Condi went in the side entrance. Typical.
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For here own safety that was the best idea could have ended up getting ruffed up a wee bit :annoyed: :dizzy:
 
Nice stuff there...

It's still snowing in Norway, by the way...
 
Great set of shots....#2 is a cracker.

BTW Gary, saw your NAS car crash shot in the papers this w/e....another £50 for ya ;)
 
well it was used in 4 papers so £200.00, that one shot has netted me £6000.00 to date. never mind the others I took. cheers
 
Pete, assume most of these shots were with the Sigma 10-20mm, looking at the wide angles ?
 
Inspires me to get backout with mine then ;) From my use of lens I would say you must have been in the faces of some of those people ?
 
DJW said:
Inspires me to get backout with mine then ;) From my use of lens I would say you must have been in the faces of some of those people ?
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Basically yer :) Like the saying says "if your photos aren't good enough, it means you're not close enough."
 
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