Standing together

I had a different post scheduled for today, but as I reviewed it last night one last time Prime Time was on the television, covering the release of the ‘Murphy Report’, more formally known as the Report of the Commission of Investigation into the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin.  By all accounts it is a shocking report, and it brought to mind the Solidarity March that I briefly took some photographs at last June.

There are other forums with people more appropriate and better qualified to comment on both the background to the Murphy Report and the revelations that it contains, and if you want to read some of that commentary I would direct you to the Irish Times’ editorial piece today which sums up my thoughts exactly.

In the meantime, to discuss this photograph briefly, it was taken as the march reached Leinster House and is fronted by some of those victims of abuse who have lead various campaigns which led, via that Solidarity March, to the report that was released yesterday.

There was a bit of a photographer’s scrum about to develop as I took this shot, as shortly Christine Buckley and others would speak briefly to the media, but for this shot I just had time to control my composition.  A wide angle, taken from the side, allowed me to include the entire front line of the march into the shot, as well as the banner they were carrying.

As I wanted to keep the full front line in focus, I had an aperture of f/8 – I was shooting in aperture priority mode – and with no light sources in the frame, and a wide range of tonalities, the camera’s meter was spot on with the resultant 1/500s shutter speed.

This is a documentary, or probably more accurately a photo-journalistic shot, and it is less about the photograph and more about the story it tells.  One of the ethical issues which arises with this type of photography is how important it is to not edit or alter the image in any way, and indeed for this image the only processing done is to adjust the contrast.