Nottingham: Mercian march, the EDL and the UAF

On Saturday 5th December 2009, 500 soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, The Mercian Regiment, marched through Nottingham City Centre. To coincide with this the English Defence League (EDL) held a protest to express their views against what they see as the 'rise of extreme Islam'. Unite Against Fascism held a counter protest in response. I travelled to Nottingham with a bunch of other people from my NCTJ course to cover the days events.

As i'd previously covered the EDL protesting in Leeds my aim was to try and capture images that documented more than the typical front line, often violent, police clashes that occur.

To represent the changing nature and tone of events over the day the below images are in (roughly) chronoligical order.

Snowmania hits Britain

The past few weeks saw parts of Britain come to a standstill caused by the annual snow frenzy. In groundhog day style the events started off pre-snow with the Government claiming we can deal with anything; snow hits; schools / businesses / transport were heavily affected across Britain; and then to top it off we suddenly have a 'gritting crisis'.

For a trainee press photographer however it's a golden opportunity for photographs so needless to say I spent the whole time out and about in my car and on foot across the Peaks and Sheffield covering the unfolding weather.

This is just some of what I have to show for it all (as well as a car that now needs scrapping due to a head gasket blowing and a copy of the photo book 'Assignments: The Press Photographer's Year', won for my snow sunset image with the fence):

The first four images no doubt betray my landscape photographer roots:

Sheffield Legends: Sean Bean

Today I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to photograph the well known actor Sean Bean. As a kid who avidly watched Sharpe and Goldeneye it was pretty cool to meet someone that I had grown up following on television. The reason for him being in Sheffield was to be inducted into Sheffield's Walk of Fame, joining a host of other local icons including Jarvis Cocker, Seb Coe, Gordon Banks and Deff Leppard.

I thought it would be rude not to enquire about any possible Sharpe episodes in the future - he said he was currently reading scripts and that something may be filmed in the future.