Street protests in Paris

[boklm]

A few photos from some street protests in Paris last month :
http://boklm.eu/b/log/photos/demonstrations/paris-retraites-oct19-2010.html

 

[ZeissFan]

Dead link as of 7:09 p.m. EST, East Coast, U.S.

 

[ZeissFan]

Oh wait, it's back now.

 

[ZeissFan]

One comment. You have some text at the top under the RSS/Twitter/Flickr icons saying that all content is public domain. Are you sure that you want that? It means that anyone take copy your images and use them as they see fit without having to give you credit.

 

[ZeissFan]

On a technical note, these images are flat. They lack contrast. Is this a color to b/w conversion?

I enjoyed the images, but from a technical standpoint, they're unattractive because of the lack of contrast.

 

[boklm]

One comment. You have some text at the top under the RSS/Twitter/Flickr icons saying that all content is public domain. Are you sure that you want that? It means that anyone take copy your images and use them as they see fit without having to give you credit.

Yes 🙂 I allow people to do what they want with them. People using my photos or not doesn't make any difference to me (I don't make any money in both cases), so if they can be useful to some people, that's nice ... And I like to see them used on some websites (although it seems to be quite rare that someone use them).

On a technical note, these images are flat. They lack contrast. Is this a color to b/w conversion?

I enjoyed the images, but from a technical standpoint, they're unattractive because of the lack of contrast.

Yes, they are quite flat. It's not color to b&w conversion, it's b&w negatives scans. But it seems I like flat images at the moment. Sometimes I make them more contrasty. It's difficult to choose.

 

[Steve Bellayr]

I like the images. I do not think that they are flat. Shooting wide as you did incorporates the grey sky which is difficult to meter with people. There are rich blacks in the images. When you shoot over two stops and here it looks like at least three that is what you get but what is important is the documentary nature of the event not the artistic presentation. You are not shooting landscapes but people in motion.

 

[Jack Conrad]

Yeah, there are some terrific documentary shots in your presentation.

Your doing great.

 

[JohnTF]

Nice work.

Regards, John

 

[user237428934]

Don't think they are flat, I like the look.

 

[igi]

Don't think they are flat, I like the look.

I think so too. In fact, the look for me is unique, something I don't see from time to time.

I wish I was there🙂

 

[raytoei@gmail.com]

thanks for sharing!

 

[lacavol]

La lutte continue.

 

[Nick De Marco]

Well done
Some very nice photos of an important moment
I was there for some of them, and ruined the one film I think I took the best photos on (but I shall never know)

I too thought they looked too flat/washed out in areas, but immediately assumed that was caused by your scanning process and settings, and not the negatives themselves which I am sure are fine.

The main thing though - they are some great images.

Here's one of my surviving ones (workers occupying Gare du Nord)

 

[sooner]

Nice photos, really interesting. I think it's interesting how French citizens, even young ones, hit the streets quite easily, and perhaps with more anger than Americans do. U.S. Marches of late have been more positive, if that makes sense. I get the impression that French youth are much more politically involved.

 

[Thardy]

I was in Paris on Oct 19 and did see the protest as it made it's way down to Invalides. They had just closed the museums in the area. At first I was a little miffed that the museums were closed two hours early, but got over it pretty quickly. Your shots have much more impact and energy than the snaps I got from the sidelines.

Congratulations

 

[Arjay]

Very interesting pictures of a sociopolitical conflict. Looking at the situation in France from a German perspective, I am yet again astonished how readily people resort to protest against matters that can be explained by simple statistics and math.

Advances in medicine have increased life expectancy in all western societies, and thus it is only logical that retirement age needs to be increased. That's a matter of fairness for the younger generation, because if the retirement age is not being increased, then the people who are young todaywill not be able to save enough to finance their own retirement.

Instead, they will be forced just to finance the retirement of the generation of their parents. Once they will come into retirement age (assuming no changes in retirement age), there will not be enough funds for them to live a life in dignity.

I am astonished to see the very people protesting in those pictures that will suffer most if the retirement age is not being changed! Unfortunarely, those pictures do not illustrate nor explain this contradiction.

I wonder if the French conflict about retirement age really is about the age number itself, but rather about the government's failure to initiate a public discussion about this problem. Orchestrating such a discussion well in advance would have helped to rationalize the discussion about this topic, like e.g. it happened at the same time in Germany: Germany's pension age was increased to 67 years (France is debating about an increase to 65 years only), but our political parties worked hard to have a discussion about this issue for four or five years.

When the corresponding law was passed in Germany, there was a lot of teeth gnawing, but generally everyone had to concede that the pension age increase is an inevitable necessity.

So actually, we are facing a conflict about how politics are being sold to the electorate, and about how the electorate could be included more into the process of finding solutions that will be acceptable for the people involved.

This kind of conflict IMHO is the backdrop for these demonstrations. And mind you, there are comparable conflicts in other European countries, such as e.g. in Germany the prolongation of the use of nuclear power plants or major infrastructure building projects like 'Stuttgart 21'. We are facing a shift in how political decisions are being made in the light of the Internet age, and many of today's politicians are still ignoring this fact.

 

[user237428934]

When the corresponding law was passed in Germany, there was a lot of teeth gnawing, but generally everyone had to concede that the pension age increase is an inevitable necessity.

A lot of people stop working before they are 65. So they can't claim the full pension. When you raise the pension age to 67 even more people won't be able to claim the full pension. So raising the pension age it just a clever way to cut pensions without calling it a pension-cut.

 

[will-i_am]

these are great i really like the 8th image i like the way the building in the background is obscured and how that contrasts well with the people in the foreground a great sense of atmosphere.

 

[Arjay]

A lot of people stop working before they are 65. So they can't claim the full pension. When you raise the pension age to 67 even more people won't be able to claim the full pension. So raising the pension age it just a clever way to cut pensions without calling it a pension-cut.

I don't disagree with you. But what alternatives do we have?

Keeping retirement age at the previous level doesn't help. Bringing older people back into paid employment is the only answer.

I know I'll have to work until I'll lose my intellectual capabilities for my work, and that situation will probably not happen before I'll be well past 70 (I hope). Others admittedly will have more problems if they have jobs that involve physical work.

Politics will have to focus on creating a labour market that caters specifically for older people, or else the social cohesion between our generations will break. If that happens, I wouldn't want to be around here any more, because the consequences would be far worse than having mass protests in the streets.