An interesting day

"Words will always retain their power. Words are the means to meaning, and for some, the annunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country."

V for Vendetta

So, an interesting day today. A day of student protests and lots - LOTS of police. Police on horses, in vans, on foot, in cars, everywhere. The protest was impossible to ignore given that it occurred just outside the office. skippygirl and I bounced out with our cameras, finding ourselves immediately in the middle of events. I've not taken photos of the police before and was initially apprehensive, but then got more and more brave - helped by the fact that there were many people around taking photos.

It was a really hard decision for which photo to go with, but in the end I kept coming back to this one. In the middle of the crowd on the steps was a guy in a V mask and when I saw him, an involuntary chill ran down my spine (it could also have been because I'd gone out without my coat ;-) His mask is real - trust me on this. I've made it stand out by applying a gaussian blur to a duplicate background layer, reducing the opacity of that layer and then using the eraser tool to remove the blur from his face.

All was peaceful and upbeat which was good. I was a bit unnerved at one point when I realised I'd become so engrossed in taking photos that I'd become surrounded by people and around them was a lot of police......

Oh and if you're wondering what they're looking up at - it's a football.

Please view large

If you'd like to see some more photos from today, I've put a couple on flickr