PROTEST

Crowd, noise, movement, posters held high into the glaring sun alternating with deep shadows on faces then vise-versa – not ideal for the photographer. The story lines may be strong (albeit sometimes irrational) but the images tend to be poor.  In Canada, people mostly gather outdoors to have festivals. Here, they frequently gather to protest. What upheaval we’ve seen in this country! Extremism from the right, extremism from the left, inner city riots, police violence, mass shootings, gun violence, vaccination and masking resistance, anti-gay, anti-women, anti-Israel activity – each triggering protests for and against. And there am I, a lone figure with a cell phone dodging and darting in the crowd, hoping to get a decent picture. In this situation, street photography comes perilously close to photojournalism, and I must remind myself that I am not there to document the protest as much as to photograph people and their behavior – the heart of street photography.