Photographer Jack Hill writing in today's Times about "that" photo
Ihave witnessed and photographed a fair number of arrests over the years. Some you can see coming, this I did not.
Few if any have become talking points as this one seems to have become. Having been assigned to cover the tragic case of Sarah Everard, I was also asked to photograph the planned-for candlelit vigil on Clapham Common.
The official event was cancelled because of Covid-19 rules but throughout the afternoon there still was a significant turnout of people quietly assembling to lay flowers and pay their respects.
A steady procession of people had laid flowers at the bandstand before the vigil
A steady procession of people had laid flowers at the bandstand before the vigil
TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER JACK HILL
As the afternoon turned to evening the solemn atmosphere changed. Different groups had arrived and one of the anti-lockdown/vaxxers tried to highjack the event by addressing the assembled crowd.
It was not long before the police, who had maintained a respectful distance on the periphery, pushed their way into the centre of the bandstand in an attempt to shut it down.
I do not know why the three women who were arrested were specifically targeted. I suspect that they were asked to move off the bandstand. Not doing so, they were then threatened with arrest. This perhaps went on for 20 minutes until a commotion ensued and Patsy Stevenson was thrown heavily to the ground.
She hit the floor right in front of me. I had been using slow shutter speeds and what little available light there was. These settings would not work now. I switched the flash on, increased the shutter speed and shot. The first two frames were completely out of focus, three and four were dark as the flash had not re-charged, five and six fortunately were sharp and she was staring straight into the lens. The police then led her and her companions away.
I texted the picture editor. Deadline for the first edition had passed but there was scope for a change in a later edition. I sent a picture within minutes from the camera to my phone and from the phone to the desk. I was surprised to receive a return message saying that the front-page picture would be changed for the second edition.
Often understandable frustrations are vented at photographers. They are visible, appear insensitive, hidden behind a camera, click, click, click, but some operate in more sophisticated ways. In a world that has become increasingly critical, I would always argue the worth in news photography. The value in this poorly exposed photograph is not its composition but its timing and that it would appear to have tapped into people’s emotions.
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Without impactful photographs our understanding of events would be incomplete. Conversely, a single still image can also present a singular view of what has happened. But this did happen and perhaps in some small way feeds into the broader political discussion about the Met police’s actions on Saturday night.
