From portrait to protest!

It is days like these which are the reason I became a photographer. The variety in this job is brilliant and today is the perfect example of that.

This morning I had scheduled in a family portrait for a colleague on camp. They wanted a nice relaxed
portrait for their family album and relatives and I was happy to oblige. This took around 30 minutes to do and they were very happy with the results, walking away with a print to hang on their wall. Whilst I was shooting, I received a text from a friend of mine, Phil. He told me that there were to be a series of protests in Lincoln over the building of a new mosque in the city. I went online and did a bit of background research and discovered that it was a faction group of the English Defence League (EDL), called the East Anglia Patriots (EAP), but as well as this group marching, there was also to be a counter protest by the group, Unite Against Racism. 
This was too good of a photographic opportunity to turn down, so as soon as I had finished with the portrait, I went straight into Lincoln. 
When I had reached the city centre I drove past the start of the march by the EAP, just as they left the train station in the centre of the city. The first thing I noticed was that the majority of the marching party were kids! No older than 16 and some as young as what must have been 12. They were mixed in with the older people of the group, some of which were carrying beer cans and a lot were waving English flags and chanting English football songs. I couldn't help to be anything else, but shocked by this.

I drove on to Phil's house, picked him up and we drove back into the city centre and walked in. We headed up to the centre and all was quiet. The only people around were shoppers and a large number of police officers, so I asked one of them the location of the protest and she duly pointed us in the right direction. 
I decided I needed to shoot both to give balance to my images so we headed to the EAP site where there were a handful of people holding banners and the cross of St George. One woman in particular caught my eye, she was holding a banner reading "Stop the invasion Stop the mosque" and wearing British themed clothing. She was smiling and seemed to be enjoying herself, she was happy for me to photograph her with the banner and actually welcomed the attention. Some of her counterparts however were not so keen. On several occasions throughout the day I heard comments from the EAP contingent ranging from "I'm gonna steal your camera" to "I'll shove that fucking camera up your arse if you photograph me" and the rather blunt, "I'm gonna kick your fuckin' head in!" I just ignored the comments and continued about my business, but I did make sure that I was always within sight of police and did nothing to draw any more attention to myself, I was merely there to document the day and not as a propaganda photographer for either side. Two things caught my eye in the EAP protest. One was the
number of children involved who were being encouraged to wave flags and get involved in the chanting by their elders. I wondered if they knew what they were protesting, if they knew why they were there and what they actually thought of the whole complex situation. I feel it is a dangerous precedent to push beliefs on people that young. The other thing that caught my eye was the diversity in the group. Not only was it the 18-35 white male there, but there were men, women, kids, the elderly, punks, rockers, blacks and whites. This may be a naive insight on my part, but when a group has self proclaimed itself as one that is the saviour of the white English middle aged male, it was a very interesting dichotomy of people. 
I then took a walk to the UAR site to get the other side of the story. Their site was smaller, but no less vocal. They were talking from a megaphone to the gathered numbers and had a witty and interesting array of banners on display. Here too there were
children amongst the group and I still don't believe these are things for children to be getting involved in. I'm a firm believer that children should be allowed to play and come to their own conclusions on the world in their own time, not have them forced on them by pushy parents. 
The one conclusion that I made from the whole day, is that the two groups aren't that unlike each other. Both passionately argue their points and both firmly believe they are obviously in the right however, they both preach against hatred whether it is the "hatred" of Islam and their "war on our streets" and "killing of our people", or the hatred of "ignorance" and "bigotry" of organisations like the EDL, but in their arguments they let themselves down by saying that they "hate" Muslims, wishing hurt upon them and their families, or that they "hate" the EDL and offering each other out for fights, so how can anyone follow these two hypocritical views and organisations? To preach against hatred by encouraging and preaching hatred makes both of these arguments fall down.

In closing I feel that there is ignorance on both sides. Both need to formulate their arguments so that
they do not come across as hypocrites, because this is where they let themselves down. If they want to seriously pursue these arguments and advertise their views, the best way to do that would be through government and not on the streets. The locals seemed more annoyed that these demonstrations were going on and local business' were certainly hit hard by toady's events. I don't think either side has come off better than the other.

For more images from toady's events, visit www.danielherrick.com

I would like to thank Phil for all his help today and for watching my back.