52. Toitū te Tiriti (Uphold the Treaty) Rally
iPhone 15 Pro Max Portrait mode
Lately, I’ve been taking part in, and documenting, several rallies. Most Saturdays, the local Palestinian community and their supporters here in Dunedin, New Zealand, lead a march from the Otago Museum to The Octagon, the civic centre of the city, to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, hear speeches, and meet as a supportive community. I’ve shared photos of these marches in past posts (see 43. Ceasefire Now! and 45. Photography is a political act).
Yesterday (Saturday, Jan. 20), I attended the first of what I expect to be many demonstrations in response to efforts by our Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon, and his National Party-led coalition government to reinterpret the Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi), Aotearoa New Zealand’s founding document. I thought I would share a few photos of the rally while the event is fresh in my mind.
Although people attend rallies and demonstrations to be seen and heard, I am aware that photographing participants can arouse suspicion. Whenever I could, I asked individuals for permission before I photographed them. Most people don’t mind, but they appreciate being asked. I also approach the organisers of an event like this beforehand to seek permission and ask if there are any protocols or concerns that I should be aware of. Before the event started yesterday morning, which was held at Queens Gardens in Central Dunedin, I had a brief chat with the organiser. I said that, following the event, I would upload the final, processed images to a folder online and email him a link so he could examine the photos before I shared them with others. I normally attach a Creative Commons CC-BY (attribution only) license to photos I take at these events, and I followed that practice with these images.
I uploaded 45 photos of the Toitū Te Tiriti Ōtepoti Rally to this folder (the web address is http://tinyurl.com/Te-Tiriti-Otepoti-2024-01-20). You are welcome to download the photos and share the link. Here are 9 of the 45 photos that you can download.
I won’t get into the current politics behind this event in this post, but for an excellent essay that provides important historical information, I recommend The Doctrine of Discovery's Disastrous Legacy, by
. Like other lands that were claimed and colonised by foreign powers, Aotearoa was not an empty, uninhabited part of the world when, in 1840, William Hobson proclaimed British sovereignty over The Land of the Long White Cloud.
Technical Notes
Rather than using my ‘proper’ camera (a Sony α7 III I bought about 5 years ago), I thought I would see what I could do with my iPhone 15 Pro Max. Specifically, I wanted to experiment with the portrait mode, which allows me to set the point of focus and the f-stop after the photo has been taken.
These photos were shot with an iPhone 15 Pro Max using the 1x, 2x, or 5x lens set to Portrait mode. The focus point and f-stop were selected during editing on the iPhone. I tweaked the images in Lightroom on an iMac and exported them as JPEG files. They were sampled down to 3,000 pixels on the longest length for this post.
What’s next?
I plan to finish a post I started earlier in the week documenting one of my regular walks into downtown Dunedin. I also have draft posts on various topics, like the usefulness of constraints and street photography as a process. We’ll see how we go.
What do you think?
You are invited to leave a comment below.
Photo of the the young woman: The look on her face makes me want to cry. So beautiful.
Excellent! I appreciate how you described the process behind these images and how you approached the organizers. Your sensitivity and transparency are much appreciated qualities.