The Protester

[Didache]

The second pic today .. this is Brian, who has lived 24/7 on the pavement outside Parliament in London. I suppose you could call him a professional protester. I was attempting to frame him within some of the dozens of posters and placards, as though to show that his identity is defined by his protest.

Cheers
Mike

[Hightree]

Hi Mike, not sure how to comment on this. The picture looks a bit busy with all these boards on the background but this is just what you wanted to make visible. Only other comment I can make is that I would have liked to see some more space on the right side of the picture as the person seems to yell towards the great nowhere, but that's only a minor comment. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Frank

[villenadecorte]

Mike,
This is a great pic- I think the busy-ness really works in this image, because this man is a "busy body" with all of those signs/placards, whatnot.
My nitpick for the image would be the centeredness of the man, and the legs sticking out from the right- are they his? At first when I saw this, I thought the man was standing, but then I saw the legs on the right and it threw me off.
Overall, great pic
Cheers,
Rebekah
VillenaDeCorte

[OldSchool]

Hi Mike,

This shot does a great job of capturing the story. You might try a tighter crop with the face and megephone taking a lot more of the image (and moved to the left some). Enogh of the background posters and placard would still come through to support the story. But, I think most of the story is told by his facial expression "I've been yelling for hours -- and I'm going to keep on at it because I feel so strongly about this.."


BR,
Tim

[jar_e]

Nice shot, and, suprisingly, I believe the busyness of the photo adds to this picture. Love the all the signs, and maybe a more head on approach would've worked better, just to have him infront of all the signs. Regardless,

Nice shot,

Jared

[DownByFive]

I think this guy was out there when I was in London last June, assuming he's sitting on the sidewalk facing parliament in the park by Westminster Abbey...

[Aaron]

I like the photojournalistic approach to this one - I agree with the cropping tighter to emphasize "Brian" more but not so tight as to exclude the protest signs. Nice shot!

[mtb'n ski]

looks very nice... it reminds me of a National Geographic shot... the only week point is how centered he is in the shot.

[Didache]

Thanks all for the comments. Yes, he is still out there, on the pavement opposite Parliament. In fact, he is such a fixture (and an icon of free speech) that a projected law banning demos immediately outside Parliament raised a huge outcry on his behalf. If people like Brian (the protester) can't do their thing, then what chance have we all got?

I agree that in an ideal world I would have liked to have given more space on the right. Unfortunately, he was right on the edge of the road, and if I had given more space there, cars would have intruded into the picture. I will experiment though with a tight crop on just his face and megaphone. Cheers.

[Hindey]

Scary! I considered taking a very similar picture at the weekend of the same subject, yet it was starting to rain! I was going to frame him 1/3 from the left of the frame and fill the rest with the signs and placards, and then probably convert to BW.

I like your interpretation, yet I do find the legs very distracting. Aside from the legs, I think I'd prefer it in BW with some grain added. Don't ask me why...

Nice shooting

Chris