After the Protest

Posted on May 31, 2016 by declan

I had a busy start to the month with some protests to take photos at and a couple of photoshoots with studio lights that I was trying out. I am also looking at revamping my websites. This blog will probably stay much the same but I’d like to put a proper website to show case my work in front of it. I’ve been trying out a couple of wordpress themes and layouts and I think I’ve settled on one that I like and will use so hopefully I’ll get a new site up at a related url in the next few weeks.

As a result I didnt have much time to work on a post this month but I did find one image that I thought was apt for the month of political protest that has been May. This was taken after a large protest outside Confederation Building. An old man stopped at the wall overlooking the city all on his own to rest and enjoy the sunshine for a few minutes.

Didnt we just leave this party?

Posted on April 29, 2016 by declan

Newfoundland just had it’s first of what are likely to be several austerity budgets and having gone through Irish austerity I have to say this is the austerity budget to beat all austerity budgets. I won’t go into details here because there are just so many things wrong with this budget that I could rant for pages and still not have covered everything. I’ll sum it up by saying if you ever wanted to see a budget that could make you wish for the warm loving embrace of the International Monetary Fund this is it. It’s enough to get Newfoundlanders out to protest in their hundreds and thousands, which for a place where protest attendance is usually numbered in single digits shows that the Liberal government may have overestimated how far they can push the ordinary people.

Occupy

Posted on October 21, 2011 by declan

The Occupy Wall Street protests have spread world wide and Ireland is no exception. We have Occupy Dame Street where a group of protestors have set up tents on the square in front of the Irish Central Bank. Last Saturday they staged a protest march through the city so I went along to take some photos. Protest photos are more fun because I can take photos of people on the street without them getting too annoyed. After all they are out there putting themselves on show so they usually welcome the camera. More photos after the break

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Waving the Flag

Posted on November 28, 2010 by declan

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions called a protest against the Irish austerity budgets and the IMF/EU bailout terms. A combination of trade unions, socialist workers and republicans. In fairness the main march was a very peaceful and well organized affair with between 50,000 and 100,000 people depending on who you believe. Unfortunately afterwards a few die hard students marched on the Dail and burned some posters of the Taoiseach for the cameras worlds media. This photo comes from the start of the march when the groups were gathering and a few stood on the wall waving nationalist flags to encourage the crowd.

Protest Photography

Posted on February 22, 2009August 7, 2012 by declan

Anyone who know me knows I like to go into the city center and photograph protest marches. They provide a good opportunity to watch the pro photo journalists in action and to practice people photography. Some days though I end up taking far more photos than I should or than I will ever manage to sort through and use.

Todays protest in Dublin was against the public service pension levy and other government cut backs. The unions were out in force and rather than the standard collection of Socialists and anarchists today we had tens of thousands of civil servants, nurses, journalists, construction workers, and on and on and on. It seemed everyone with a union card was on the streets.

Of course I got carried away with my camera and when I sat down hours later to look at my photos I found I had taken 1011 photos. 1011 photos! I’m actually annoyed at myself.

In comparison I’m reminded of Robert Capa who landed on the Normandy beaches and took 72 shots with two cameras. Now I realize it was a different time and he was infinately better at photography than I will ever be but surely 900 of todays photos would not exist if I had stopped, taken a breath and considered the value of the shot rather than letting the ease of digital photography lull me into just holding down the shutter button.