So I want to make it clear, this is not a political post.
I am going through some of the pictures I took on my last European road trip with my youngest son, sharing some that I didn't get round to posting at the time.
One of the things I had hoped for was the opportunity to do some street photography which is something I would like to develop in contrast to my normal focus of wildlife and nature.
These images were captured in Vienna, we had gone to look at the Hofburg Palace (the offices of the Federal President and other secretaries of state) and the nearby Volksgarten. As we approached it was immediately obvious that something out of the ordinary was taking place although at first it was not clear what it was. There was a lot of security and several TV news crews at work. A quick online search revealed that President Putin was making an official visit to meet with the Austrian President and then to attend the opening of a new Exhibition at the World Museum.
Outside the main entrance to the Hofburg Palace was a pro-Russian "demonstration" which was getting a lot of media attention and it was interesting to watch. It was fun watching the secret service guys too although I am not sure they liked me taking their photo, they walked past us a few times trying to work out if we were anything other than curious tourists.
Walking around the square we found a counter demonstration with a small group of people protesting the occupation of Georgia. They were getting more attention from the security services and they were being carefully managed in a spot where they were unlikely to be seen by the visiting Russian President, unlike his fans who would have been in clear sight.
As I said at the start, this is not a political post but the events did given me an opportunity to take some candid shots of people and the pictures tell a story. It was interesting to me however that although there were definitely two sides to this story the person at the centre of it would only ever see one side...
No comments:
Post a Comment