The one thing you can count on when the weather gets warm are protests in the streets of Montreal. With the current debate over the Quebec government austerity measures, protests have been happening for the better part of the last 2 weeks. As I haven’t photographed a protest in about 4 years (I believe the last was when I was doing coverage for a UK News agency), and as I had finished my work for the day, I decided to grab my camera and make my way down.
I must say that I am pretty rusty. Things get hectic in protests, with the marchers, the cops, weaving around other photographers and news crew. As I’m there as a freelancer, I try my best to stay out of the way of the working photographers I recognize.
Thousands hit the streets today. I read that they expected up to 100,000 in the streets. At one point the head of the protest was a good dozen blocks in front of the tail end (as per the police’s tweets I was reading).
I left when the protest seemed to be dying down, but seems that I missed some pushing, shoving and tear gas throwing. Ah well, can’t win ’em all!
The three types of shots you should be looking for when doing photojournalism are:
- An establishing shot where you show a wider scene, bigger crowds
- Mid shots where you are close in to the action. Sections of an establishing shot
- Close ups (aka money shots) where you get up close, emotions, people, events. These are the hardest to get, but they have the biggest impact.
Sadly, I lack quite a bit in the close ups. Seems that I have to go back out and shoot more 🙂
