Following my hijacking of Phil Coomes’ BBC “News in Pictures” blog last week, I thought I’d put my slightly revised selection from 2011 on here to continue the series that I began last year.

I’m obviously tempting fate as I have one shift left for 2011 on the 31st, so calling these my favourites of the year runs with the proviso that the Second Coming doesn’t happen on Saturday, with Jesus choosing to return for an impromptu monster truck session on Oxford Street while I’m on duty.

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First up is a scene from the Southbank of the Thames, during the build-up to the royal wedding.  With tourists filling the city and everything either draped in union flags or police tape, most photographers in London were regularly being sent out to find feature pictures on the upcoming marriage.  Aside from the poses looking like it could have been staged, the punchline to it all was that “The Queen” was in fact an Eastern European bloke.  I hope Phil the Greek knows.  The full blog can be found here.

The London riots saw some incredible images on the news wire from all agencies, newspapers and freelance sources. While I captured a good share of the flames and violence,  one of my personal favourite pictures came on the first night as I was leaving Tottenham to edit my photographs. Just as I was about to go, I glanced over my shoulder and saw a woman carrying two young children through the rubble and broken glass. The blue lights from the police vans lit her face as she walked towards the line of armoured vehicles and riot police. A few hundred metres behind her, the police were still clashing with rioters and missiles were being thrown in all directions. Being in that situation was scary enough, but as a father I can only imagine how scared this woman must have been for the safety of the children.  More images from the story can be found here.

The MCM Comic Con convention in east London turned out to be one of my favourite jobs of the year to shoot thanks to the ridiculous amount of pictures that were there to be taken, as nearly everyone attending was dressed in some type of costume. One of my favourites was Lindsay Vincent from Cumbria who dressed as US singer Lady Gaga and was happy to take time out to pose for me in front of the passing crowds.  The set of images I came away with have ended up being my favourite picture story of the year, thanks to the devotion of the fans of Cosplay and all that it involves.  Bravo, eccentric types!  More frames can be found here.

The show below is an idea that’s been done before but I loved how well matched the girls were.  While covering the “Vintage at the Southbank Centre” event, I’d spotted two girls playing around with the record covers as they searched through the stacks of vinyl on a stall.  As I approached them, they’d just found these two covers and were starting to play around with them.  I’d love to say I’d made the effort of finding out the exact covers and posing them just so but they made the frame for me.  While not being the hardest frame to capture, it still puts a smile on my face.  More images can be found here.

Covering the World Short Track Speed Skating Championships at Sheffield Arena in March, the photographers were given the chance to shoot from directly above, allowing us to catch the action from a new perspective.  At the time, I didn’t really appreciate how rare an opportunity it was until I’ve seen the “best of 2011″ images from a number of leading sports photographers have included shots from the gantry from over that weekend.

I was sitting in the office of Agence France-Presse, the news agency that I work for, on a particularly quiet day when I noticed the end of a rainbow over the financial district of London. I grabbed my camera and began taking pictures of the rainbow that could be used to illustrate a future business feature or story, when I noticed that it was starting to get longer. Within a few seconds it had become a full arc, and shortly after a second rainbow appeared over the top. By this time I’d called everyone over from their desks and they stood and watched the incredible light show as I frantically snapped away from under my coat (to cut out reflections from the glass of the office window). Then, as fast as it had appeared, it was gone.

Another shot from the first night of the London riots and it’s pretty self-explanatory but I liked how it captured the energy and frantic movement as the night developed.  With an appliance store on fire, the riot police moved forward pushing the rioters further down the street.  It’s always a challenge in this kind of situation to find the right place to be, as you’re facing incoming missiles when too close to the police but are at risk of being attacked if you’re in with the rioters.  More images can be found here.

Never having shot Wimbledon before, other than a few of the features surrounding the event, I got to cover the actual play this year with this shot being my favourite. After a long and frustratingly close rally, French player Benoit Paire threw his racquet while diving as he played against Spanish player David Ferrer.  A truly desperate move but it gave me a shot for the yearly round-up!  More images can be found here.

Another moment from the Comic-Con 2011 convention makes my list and this one was the opposite of the shot above, being a moment I spotted as I wandered around the main concourse during lunch.  While all of the attendees were connected by their love of cosplay, they still divided into some groups, so I had a poke around to see how they were mixing.  The guy in the centre was clearly quite proud of his costume and seemed to be a bit of an alpha-male of the group.  I’m proud of catching his flirtatious look towards the passing girl while the guy on the right eyes me suspiciously.  I also loved the Comic-Con show for this moment. More images can be found here.

It’s hard to fail on a story like this but when sent to cover the 25th annual International Kite Festival in Bristol, my favourite photo was of the interaction between a giant flying lobster and a spectator.  Even if it wasn’t a favourite picture, I’d probably include it anyway, just so that I could write that sentence.

While covering the on-going fighting around the town of Bani Walid in Libya, AFP journalist Dominique Soguel and I started chatting to a group of National Transitional Council (NTC) fighters as they sheltered from the midday sun on a dried riverbed running under the road. After shooting a few portraits of them, a senior figure in the NTC army arrived with a reinforced briefcase filled with wrapped bundles of tens of thousands of Dinar and started to pay the troops. With the fighting dragging on longer than hoped, the fighters were struggling to survive with families at home in need of income, so supporters had raised money by selling their possessions and sending the funds to the front line.  My posts from Libya can be found here.

The day of the royal wedding was truly one of the most stressful days of my life, but in the end it was saved by bridesmaid Grace Van Cutsem. The young girl became world famous after she covered her ears to protect herself from the noise of a fly-past, just at the point of the royal kiss, creating one of the moments of the day. I was very grateful that we were shooting from so far away, as if I’d been closer I may have tried to crop in really tight on the kiss and would have missed Grace’s moment.  The whole story can be found here.

During the visit to Britain by US President Barack Obama, I was covering a number of the meetings inside number 10 Downing Street. It included this one between the president, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Prime Minister David Cameron. I have absolutely no idea what was said, but I love the body language between the three subjects. While the prime minister had moved out of the way to allow us to photograph Mr Clegg and President Obama, the combination of the apparent giggling fit on the left, and the rather stern look from Mr Cameron, makes for an amusing caption competition shot.  More images from the visit can be found here.

So there we go.  Unless you hear about a series of crushed cars near Oxford Circus over the weekend, bring on 2012.

On Saturday, I spent the day in Hyde Park, covering the Women’s Elite Triathlon event before heading off to a barbecue.  After a settling in for the evening at home, I got a text from my picture editor telling me of trouble in Tottenham.  As it’s only down the road from where I live, I jumped in the car and wandered over there, expecting a few fisticuffs and swearing before it fizzled out.  I was wrong.  After four consecutive nights of violence and looting on a level unseen before in London, it seems as though the city may finally be starting to move into a state of healing.

Arriving in Tottenham, I walked into a scene of chaos as riot police held a group of people in an area on the main street from both ends while blocking people from entering from the non-enclosed side.  Groups were gathering outside the cordon trying to get in and soon realised that they could easily walk down some of the many alleyways and find themselves right in the centre.  As I moved around, I saw a camera crew working in the outer area and introduced myself.  After checking who I was, they warned me that they’d just seen the first photographer mugging with the guy losing his gear before being beaten up.  Thankfully, I’d anticipated this and was carrying a very stripped kit, hidden under my jacket.

After following the camera crew down one of the alleys to enter the central area, a group gathered and started to egg each other on with cries of “The media are targets too!”.  I checked with the crew and decided to get out of there so I could find another way in.  After trying and failing, I headed back to the same spot and walked in alone.  As I got to the main area, the police helicopter searchlight lit the street and I saw exactly how bad it was already looking; the burnt-out remains of two police cars lay in the road while a nearby shop was collapsing in on itself as it burned.  Within a few minutes of arriving, the police charged and I hid behind a phone box until they’d passed then switched to the other side as the area was pelted with rocks and bottles.

As I’ve often found in these situations, the riot police were exceptionally helpful to the media allowing myself and the other three or four who’d got through to work with impunity as long as we stayed clear of their front line.  With so much pressure on and possible danger, it’s amazing that more don’t snap at the press but all was fine for a good ten minutes, allowing us to shoot the events as they unfolded.  As the barrage of incoming missiles grew and a double decker London bus was set on fire, the police needed more room so asked us to move further back and I decided to head out.  Just as I was reaching the police line to exit the cordon, I glanced back and saw a woman walking through the rocks and debris with two terrified children.  Knowing that deadlines were fast approaching, I dashed back to my car, edited the stills and video and pushed them through to Washington for validation.

Returning to the area the next morning, I discovered just how badly the night had ended.  Getty photographer Matt Lloyd had left the scene at the same time as me to edit, but then returned without any professional equipment due to the danger to photographers and shot the events on his iPhone 4.  After being pushed from the main area by the police, the rioters had gone on to devastate the area.  Driving down to Bruce Grove station was like entering a war zone.

The road leading down to the station was half blocked by burning bins and kids on mountain bikes zig-zagged across the street.  As I parked my car and walked around the corner, I got to see the remains of what had, up to the previous day, been a busy bustling high street.  Firefighters were still damping down the remains of a pub as police officers stood guard around an ATM that had been ripped from the wall and emptied.  The few emergency vehicles that were moving around were slowly cruising as they crunched over the bricks, rocks and bottles that covered the road.  The double decker bus that had blazed so brightly the previous night was now so reduced that I had to explain to another photographer what it was that he was looking at.  Further down the street, a massive carpet warehouse had been torched, destroying all of the apartments of those living above.

The ground was covered in looted mobile phone packaging and blue plastic cases from the jewellery taken from the now-destroyed store next to the smouldering pub.  Travelling a little down the road with Reuters photographer Luke MacGregor, we came across the local retail park where looters had run amok for hours on end, with no police intervention due to the escalation of arson and violence just around the corner.  Massive electronics, computer, mobile phone and home goods superstores had been totally stripped.  Speaking to one of the security guards who was standing next to some of the plasma televisions recovered from the car park, he told me that the looters had clearly been professional thieves as, on entering the buildings, they’d headed straight to the security offices where they disabled the cameras and removed all recordings.

Realising how serious it had been, it soon became clear that this was likely to happen again, I went home to get some rest ahead of the evening and any possible repeat.

By 6pm, word was beginning to spread that the looting looked likely to spread to nearby Enfield.  Heading up there, I again stripped my gear down to the bare minimum of a single D3s body with one 50mm f1.4G lens and one 28-300mm f3.5-f5.6G “lazyboy” lens.  On arriving, it was clear that there was likely to be trouble as small groups of teenagers wearing hoods, masks and balaclavas roamed through the parks and side streets around the town’s retail centre.  Not wanting to risk my car, I parked outside the centre and walked in.  I’d only been walking two minutes when a large group appeared around the corner of a side street and came walking towards me.  My hope that they were peaceful didn’t last long as one of them punched his fist through a pub window as he walked.  A bottle landed near my feet as I crossed the road and turned the corner.  Thankfully, I walked straight into a line of riot police in full gear but the fact that the group was walking around freely smashing windows only metres away from the police front-line set the mood for how the evening would go.

After the previous night’s foray into no-man’s land, I decided to start out near to the police lines.  Like the night before, one of the riot police broke away from the line to come and check on my safety wear before advising me that if I was injured at any point, to shout “Man down!” to alert the medic as the police line would be looking forward.  After minor scuffles, the main group broke away from the front line and seemed to disappear.  After checking out a smashed-up police car, I joined forces with Getty’s Peter Macdiarmid to try and track down the action by car.  Reports soon started to come in that large groups were hitting a nearby retail park, so we headed over to find the police protecting two large electrical stores as a gang smashed in the front windows of a supermarket opposite.  Within moments, the police raced over there and the group dispersed.  This went on to be the pattern of the night; reports on twitter would speak of an incident, we’d race over to the location to find that the police had intercepted the same messages and had secured the area.  A long night of frustration as we chased our tails around Enfield.

Day three of the riots was when things truly became unbelievable.  Starting in Hackney, I arrived to find cars burning and riot police desperately protecting small sections of the main thoroughfare, Mare Street.  With police helicopters swooping dangerously low, the action soon moved to a nearby housing estate.  Again, more cars were burned and rioters charged before riot police counter-charged.

After seeming to secure the area, myself and a group of other photographers sat down in a shop doorway to wire only to suddenly discover that the police were pulling out.  Looking up the road, we were suddenly faced with the same group that had, until moments before, been held back by a large group of riot police as they walked down the street to our position.  One very fast exit later and I was in freelance AFP photographer Ki Price‘s studio a mile down the road.  After a hasty recharge of batteries, I headed off to South London with photographer Jules Mattsson to check out reports of looting in Clapham Junction.

It’s hard to explain how unreal this whole experience was by now.  If you’re outside the London or the UK and in an area untouched by these riots, just imagine your local high street being totally torn apart by looting and violence with the police nowhere to be seen.  My picture editor was told to collect his child early from nursery as they wanted to close early.  I was driving between every flashpoint using every bit of the small amount of hazardous environment training I know, making sure to keep distance between myself and other vehicles at all times for fast getaways and braking early at lights so that I never reached total standstill.  A colleague of mine was surrounded in his car at one point with youths in balaclavas and masks grabbing at the door handles and when he raced down the road, he saw that they’d been setting up roadblocks at the junction so that they could stop every car to burn them.  Truly insane and often terrifying.

Arriving in Clapham Junction was one of these moments.  Kirsten used to live here so I know the area reasonably well, but turning onto the main road we found ourselves looking down a long open road, littered with debris as youths in hoods loitered on both sides.  I seem to remember that I did actually whistle the opening bars to the theme from “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” at this point.  After some evasive driving when passing through the centre including a very fast getaway through a large group in the middle of the road, we parked up and walked down to the main shopping area.  I’ve written this too many times already so far in this blog, but by this point I was running out of ways to comprehend what I was seeing.  The same road that Kirsten and I had shopped in and enjoyed lazy Sunday breakfasts on was destroyed.  A smashed plasma screen was lying in the middle of road and everywhere people milled around looking in the remains of the shop windows at the total chaos.  While the police battled a large group of rioters and looters a few hundred metres down the road, two remained on guard outside a branch of Currys electrical store to protect both the stock and the injured man that they had discovered on entering the premises.  He was later taken away in handcuffs.

It was clear that we’d arrived too late to record the looting, but Sun photographer Lee Thompson and AP photographer Simon Dawson had seen it all and were clearly shocked.  Heading back to Lee and Simon’s apartment to wire our pictures, we’d just about reached the door when we heard that it had kicked off again and the looters had set fire to a shop and apartments on the main junction.  Racing back we caught the fire crews tackling the blaze before more rumours came through of a blaze at a nearby cinema.  You can hopefully get the idea of how frantic this was all getting.  If we were at the major news story of the night, this kind of action would have been insane enough but to consider that a few miles down the road, absolutely massive fires and riots were tearing Croydon apart, while similar smaller flashpoints were occurring all over the capital was truly shocking.  We head back for a recharge and an edit session and discussed where to head next.

Leaving Lee and Simon in Brixton, Jules and myself headed back up north to Waltham Abbey where reports were coming in of a huge fire at the Sony distribution centre.  Forty five minutes later, we arrived and managed to gain entry to the cordoned area to see the fire crews as they continued to tackle the blaze.  One fireman there admitted that the heat was so great that the spray was turning to steam before it even hit the building due to the sheer volume of flammable plastics and media in storage.  By now it was 6am and the end of another very long night.

The fourth night arrived and the whole of London held its breath as it waited to see what would happen.  With the weather forecasts predicting fair weather, there was no reason that the crime and violence of previous evenings would not continue.  Joining forces tonight with Matt Cetti-Roberts, we monitored the news, the local radio stations, Twitter and other photographers to see where the action was occurring.  Unlike previous nights, it seemed that the violence had begun to move on from London.  While other cities such as Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool were about to face their first evenings of riots, the capital seemed to reach its first point of near-calm in days.  With the police flooding the streets with 16,000 officers on shift, and groups of vigilantes and “protection groups” patrolling their neighbourhoods, we watched and waited to see if the peace would hold.  Sporadic reports of looting came in and Twitter was alive with gossip and rumour but knowing how to sift through the lies and speculation has become quite a well-worn skill.  With five photographers on shift for AFP, we ended up with very little to cover.  Following the community angle, Matt and I headed up to Enfield to see if we could find the group that were said to be patrolling the neighbourhoods.  After half an hour we came across the main group and started to walk with them.  While it contained people of all races, the vast majority were white and in a very heated mood.  We walked with them for an hour or so, the mood was mainly one of bravado and community strength, but I can’t deny that I saw some disturbing outbursts.  During our time with them, the group at one point targeted a young black man who was walking alone.  While some were wanting to injure him, it was good to see that there were also many who were shouting for them to leave him alone as he was only one man against four hundred.

Moving on from this, we headed down to Southall in South London to find one of the Sikh temples that was reportedly being guarded by members of the local community.  Arriving at the Sri Guru Singh Sabha temple, it can’t be denied that the vibe was entirely different.  While Enfield had opted for a marching show of force with cars honking their horns and the police on hand to break up any signs of violence, Southall’s residents had chosen to remain in position outside their temples, sending out motorcycle patrols around the area to report back on movement of the hooded gangs that were seen in the outer streets.  The police were showing trust in the group’s peaceful means and were happy to leave them to it.  A cup of tea and a chat with one of the spokesmen proved a much needed return to normality after such a hard few days.

On Tuesday night, I tweeted that despite the fact that I have so far avoided conflict photography due to responsibilities to my family, I found myself using evasive driving to avoid masked gangs who were out to torch cars on the streets of my home city.  I truly hope that in years to come, Max will be as shocked as we all are today at what happened and that this will remain one of the most bizarre and unique periods in UK history.

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I should point out here that there are also some incredible examples of the work by friends and colleagues over the last few days available to see elsewhere online.  As ever, the Boston Globe’s “Big Picture” site has put together a strong collection of images from the first two nights.  My favourite set of images has to be by PA photographer Lewis Whyld who has put together a slideshow here.  He managed to be at all the right places at the right times through a combination of all the usual factors, and has come away with a strong collection of work.  Nice one, bud.

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While there are many stories of loss that have come from these nights of violence, one that has caught the attention more than others is the case of Aaron Biber, the 89 year old barber who lost his store to looters.  An online collection was set up here and has, at the time of writing, raised £25,000+ to help rebuild his livelihood.

Before I begin, I should explain my own experiences with fees and student debt.  When I was 17, I took a Foundation course in photo-journalism with my A levels.  On passing this, I applied for and secured a place on the next stage, the Pre-entry NCTJ Photo-Journalism course.  However, when I was told this good news, I was also informed that I’d have to fund the course fees of £2000 myself.  Being far from wealthy, this actually forced me away from the course and I moved on to pursue music.  Eight years later, the European Union began to cover the fees for those accepted and I managed to get a position once more.  Without that financial assistance, I would never have completed the course so I can thoroughly understand how some can say that £9000 of fees will be enough to dissuade them from attending University.  Fees are bad, mmkay?

Having managed to time my days off with all of the three previous student tuition fee protests, the fourth demo became my first full day of revolting students.  With other photographers having already experienced the fun and games involved, many were already complaining about the long day ahead before it had even started.  Not a good sign.

Speaking of signs, a group holding oversized model textbooks gathered at the front of the march before it set off, making quite a nice frame.  It only dawned on me later in the day that it was a “novel” (snigger) way to disguise your riot shield.

The march from the University of London to the Houses of Parliament went smoothly enough with a few kids at the front running ahead and taking a different route but eventually regrouping with the main body of protestors.  When they finally reached the arranged destination, it quickly became clear how odd a decision it is to march on Parliament; the square is one giant containment area surrounded by buildings with bomb and bullet-proof windows.  Basically, the march led itself into the kettle.

While the people filed in, all was calm enough but within a short period, a handful of protestors began to kick off with the odd missile being thrown at the police, barriers being pushed down and statues being vandalised.  While the majority of the crowd were happy to just be there and make their presence speak for itself, it was clear that others had come to cause trouble.  It didn’t take long for it to begin.

At the junction of Victoria Street and Parliament Square, a flashpoint soon became apparent with the police line being consistently tested by surging crowds.  For those that have never been in this kind of situation, allow me to give my take on how the stories of police brutality against innocent youngsters occur.  Firstly, Mr. or Mrs. “FightThePower” gets to the front line and starts kicking off and pushing the police around.  Once it’s started to get loud and aggressive, others come over to see what’s happening.  The initial troublemakers take a step back from the front line, allowing the less-aggressive protestors to slip to the front.  Once they’re safely away from the danger, the incredibly brave soldiers of anarchy begin throwing sticks and rocks at the police line while surging forwards, pushing the ones at the front into the police.  The police respond by pushing back and inevitably someone gets hurt.

Throughout the day, you could clearly see that the majority of the masked kids that were shouting for people to target the horses and throwing broken chunks of concrete were conveniently never on the front line.  Way to go, tough guys.

It was around this time when the first photographer casualties occurred with colleagues James Vasey and Luke McGregor both suffering cuts during crowd surges.  With the crush becoming more severe, a number of photographers were pushed to the floor under fencing with two of them saying that they thought that it could be about to get REALLY serious.

With the police horses now out to hold the line, a few small groups in the crowd started to take out their frustration on what was to hand with construction fencing and a security shed being targeted.

Before long, the fencing was being used against the police back at the flashpoint.  It was so clear how this was going to end up by this point.  If you try to force a large metal section of fencing at police and they start wrestling it back at you, who’s going to come out worse; the police dressed in body armour and helmets or the guys on the front line with nice soft heads?

As the sun went down, the fires began with benches and the previously mentioned shed getting the lighter treatment.  With all this happening, I have to restate that the vast majority of the people in Parliament Square were chatting, chanting and remaining calm.  From what I saw, there is very obviously a smaller element that are just there to break things, or in their words, “fuck things up”. A man mentioned to me that he’d asked one of the masked protestors if he’d heard when the vote to decide if the fee increase would be going through in Parliament.  The masked man responded by asking him what vote he was talking about.

By 4pm, the police decided to close the area of, effectively forming the “kettle”.  From this point on, only accredited media or those with medical emergencies could pass out of parliament Square.  By now, the marchers had been in the square for around 3-4 hours with at least a few more hours in containment ahead of them.  A small area in the centre of the grassed area became an impromptu toilet with a definite “festival” feel to the mud around that corner of the square.

As it got colder and people got hungry and tired, more of the demonstrators headed towards the exit but found the “kettle” still in place with nobody allowed to leave.  With nowhere to go, the flashpoint moved to Whitehall with huge numbers funnelling into the closed off road.

This time, I decided to get right into the thick of it and managed to both lose my protective headgear and have a flashgun smashed.  Whoopee.  Still, it resulted in me having to shoot catch-flash instead which, thanks to an abundance of photographers in the area, was pretty easy with some decent results.  Like most of the protests and demonstrations that happen now, the media is there in the front line with agency, newspaper, freelance and amateur photographers scrambling for positions.  A number of times in the evening, there were similarities with the clashes at the G20 demonstration in central London where I was half expecting a PR to come along and start handing out press releases to the rows and rows of media.

By now, word had come through of THE incident of the day with Matt Dunham of AP managing to be at just the the right place at just the right time to capture the moment that a breakaway group of protestors attacked a car carrying Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall.  Now when something like that happens, it’s game over.  Everyone very quickly realises that with an image like that on the wire, there’s no point in even thinking of another angle.  Sure enough, Matt secured nearly every front page in the UK the next day and very probably in countries all over the world.  Up to that point, Ki Price had been the man of the day with his picture of a guy swinging on a Union flag, suspended from the Cenotaph war memorial.  Thankfully, he also managed to get his day of front pages the day after Matt, when it was discovered that the boy in question was the son of Pink Floyd‘s Dave Gilmour.  Despite him being a history student at an exclusive University, he claimed to have no idea what the Cenotaph was.  With today’s news that he’s been arrested, I guess he’s going to be learning something for free after all.

After smashing a few windows on the Treasury building and the Supreme Court, the Police managed to push the group back and after holding them for a little longer, the containment was slowly opened along a secured route, allowing the remaining group to slowly make their way over Westminster bridge and home.  With this being the final protest scheduled for 2010, the new year promises to hold more demonstrations, despite the bill passing through Parliament.  With neither side appearing to want to back down on their opinions, it looks like this story is set to rumble on for some time.  Looks like I might need to get that hard hat replaced…

This morning, I was asked to attend an event at Abbey Road studios with Sting.  Arriving at the door, I could only tell the receptionist that I was here for “some Sting thing” as I had nothing but the name and the venue.  Having been mistaken for an in-house photographer when shooting at Abbey Road before resulting in some rushed explanations as I was led into a recording studio, I was a little unsure as I was taken through to the famous “Studio #1″ to find the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra tuning up.

With a brief explanation from a member of Sting’s staff, I found that I’d be watching Sting performing five of his famous songs with full orchestral arrangement from his current “Symphonicity” tour.  I can’t say it’s the worst way to start a day!

With instructions not to shoot during the actual performance due to extremely sensitive microphones, myself and fellow photographer/music photography legend Brian Rasic got to shoot the set-up and tuning, enjoy the performance then get in closer during a brief break before the final song.  The only downside from the job came when he mentioned that he had planned on using drumming legend Vinnie Colaiuta for the tour until he decided that a full kit was too loud.  Damn him!  I could have watched Vinnie playing from a few feet away!  Sod the onstage sound issues!  IT’S VINNIE!  Some people just don’t think of the ex-drumming visiting photographers, do they?

The morning’s set included “Englishman in New York”, “My Ain True Love”, “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic”, “I Hung My Head” and ended on an impromptu “Next To You”.  The orchestration sounds great and it’ll be quite a show for those who get to see his only UK show at the Royal Albert Hall on October 1, 2010.

1. If you actually prepare for the bad weather for once and get fully waterproofed up, by the time you arrive at the tube station in central London, you’ll emerge to blistering sunshine.  The same also applies in reverse.
2. You will see the politician that you waited 10 hours outside the House of Commons for on a daily basis as soon as the story that involved him/her has passed.
3. A celebrity on the red carpet that points at an individual camera is incredibly irritating to 46 photographers and very pleasing to 1.
4. The kid who got the blurry picture of the burning building on his 4mm ultra-wide angle camera phone never quite understands that the image isn’t worth a grand.
5. The first casualties of press photography are your lens caps.
6. A standard “Grip and Grin” photo inside Downing Street lasts around 10 seconds. When the press officer tells you “this will be a quick one”, be concerned.
7. The Met Police do actually have rules to follow, regarding the working relationship with photographers.
8. There are only so many times that you can manage to genuinely laugh when a passer-by offers to swap their praktika sureshot for your full-frame DSLR with 300mm f2.8 lens.
9. Nobody wears photographer vests (See also “Wanker jackets“).
10. Your friends and family don’t care about the 15-month project that you’re doing on inner city deprivation but will want to hear all about the 8 seconds that you spent photographing David Beckham at the launch of his new branded Thermos flask.
11. Try to lead by example and make sure you wear deodorant when shooting London Fashion Week. Also, learn to rest when you can.
12. No matter how many times they’ve been shot, the Politico Top Trumps cards given away during party conference season are always a must.
13. Mentioning the name “Paul Delmar” is the press photographers equivalent to the masonic handshake.
14. When you’re slapping your laptop for only connecting at 7kb/s when wiring a job in the countryside, remember that it was only a few years ago when you’d have been high-fiving anyone close to you for getting such blistering speeds.
15. Nothing redresses the balance with PRs better than a full photographer walk-out.
16. The free photo recovery software that you get with your memory cards is no good to you uninstalled, sitting at the bottom of your desk drawer at home when things go wrong.
17. When shooting boxing, don’t assume that you’ll have the first round to get your settings adjusted.
18. When trying to board a plane with a very large camera kit as hand luggage, they may weigh your peli-case, but they won’t weigh your extra-pocketed jacket (but always consider #9).
19. Nail your tight, bright and shite before you paint with light.
20. You never know everything so with this in mind, it’s over to you.  Feel free to add your own golden rules below!

For the previous two lists, see here and here.

After countless hours of research, meetings, plans and tactic proposals, the G20 rolled into town on Wednesday for a few days of PnP (politics and protests).

First job of the day was a visit to Maggie’s Cancer Care unit in Hammersmith with Michelle Obama and Sarah Brown.  Usually a pool job means one photographer and possibly a film crew will be allowed access to the event due to security and space restrictions.  The results will then be shared among certain agencies and new outlets and all is good with the world. Knowing how the US media works, it didn’t come as too much of a shock to find that the pool actually involved four photographers and two camera crews.  Bahh..  Thankfully, things went well and I managed to get a few frames before grabbing a lift back to town in the travelling media bus.

After editing en route (travel sickness has been pretty much overcome due to forced wiring of pictures in cars and buses) I headed to the Bank of England for the planned “Meltdown in the City” demo.

After days of build-up from the media (damn their speckly hides), protestors and police, hyping the threat of violence, it soon became clear that 40% of the crowd were journalists with the slightest oddity being pounced on by gangs of photographers and TV crews within milliseconds. As police units began to close off roads and pen protestors into certain areas, scuffles began to break out on the front-line.  As is always the case with these events, a small group of people come to cause trouble and, combined with young kids who are out on their first protest and buzzing like tartrazine-guzzlers, flashpoints occur.

I’m a big supporter of the energy and belief that “the youth” and students are prepared to bring onto the streets during demos but it is thoroughly frustrating to see how insincere some of them are. I would never dream of telling them not to do it as it’s important to voice your feelings but their knowledge is so wafer-thin. I’m not joking when I say they had painted their faces, chalked “today capitalism ends” onto the Bank of England and ended the day discussing how they taught the world a lesson as they sip their latte in Starbucks around the corner.

One group I ran into later in the evening asked how they could get past the police blocks to get back into the protest as they’d been to the pub for a few hours but were now wanting to join in again.  They have as much passion to smash the system as an episode of Heartbeat.

Anyhow, inevitably the cocktail of testosterone, alcohol, bravado and a full compliment of willing press resulted in the first window being broken at the RBS bank.  Within minutes, a semicircle of TV crews and photographers had gathered as windows were smashed and the offices were raided with keyboards and monitors soon being waved in the air.  It’s difficult for me to write about the media’s part in this as it’s very easy to criticise it’s part in both encouraging violence and portraying the events in a twisted way.

My defence to this is that despite the recent march through London going smoothly with no violence, our coverage was just as in-depth with four photographers covering the route and rally to the end.  If I’m at a different event and it turns violent, I’ll cover that too but the pictures will be so much more dramatic that people will want to see them as they’re unusual and interesting.  Also, I’m guessing that the same people who were shouting about police brutality if they were pushed may soon cry of censorship if the smashed windows and violence had received no coverage at all in the news. Just a guess of course but it certainly seems a possibility.

Back at the demo, events soon calmed down again and the day-time protestors headed home leaving a die-hard group within the cordon.  Once the police were happy that the remaining people weren’t planning on going anywhere, they closed the area down again and penned them in.  By this point, I was outside the cordon sending pictures so on my return, I found myself blocked from entering.  Grrr.. People who asked were genuinely surprised to hear that I couldn’t come and go as I please with my media pass but that’s a thing of the past. With so many members of the press at events like this from all companies ranging from international agencies to local papers and campaign freesheets, if they allowed everyone with a presscard to move around as they wished, they’d have been no point in trying to stop anyone.  Very frustrating to us but there’s a part of me that understands.  I guess that’s what makes the cat and mouse side of getting back in so much fun..

After an hour or so of patrolling the perimeter, fortune saw me in the right place at the right time as another flashpoint erupted and I could slip into the frontline again.  By this time, the light was fading and as the protestors were herded through the Square Mile, fires were lit in the road and smoke filled the air.

As the police managed to dilute the crowds, I filed my last pictures of the day and headed back for a debriefing in the office.

With everything still in one piece, it was time to head home and get some kip before day 2 kicked off.

Wotcha all.. A break from my usual drivel to bring you a public information message. Anyone who’s been badgered by the hobbybobbies (Community Support Officers) when taking a picture should view this film. It gives an example of how ridiculous they can be and what your rights are. I particularly like his “Shut up”. Pure professional.. Enjoy

Anyone having trouble with the embedded video above can follow this link..