The public service protests and strike continues. Unlike during the previous week, this time the police had a significant, visible presence, as the city officials declared that the police will get involved as a last resort. Also unlike the previous week - today was an incredibly beautiful day. -13 degrees Celsius, clear blue skies and so much sunlight. The harsh light around 10am made for difficult photography conditions, but the end results feel pretty rewarding, to me at least.
The situation with the strike has reached a stalemate, it seems. The leaders of the protesters won’t back down and are asking for the situation to be resolved to their benefit or for the city government to step down, while the city officials aren’t backing down from the changes and are pretty confident that the protesters, the citizens and the media will tire of the thing before too long. It seems that the media has already tired of the whole thing - in more than a week of protests, conferences and debates, we got no new info, no new data, nothing to indicate that the situation is going to change. Today, during the municipal parliament meeting, at least three journalists fell asleep. The rest left their recorders inside and just kind of hung out in the lobby. On the plus side - at least I’m getting to hang out with journalists and photographers from other papers and tv stations.
As for the citizens - most people on the street aren’t even aware of the protests or the strikes. Even those who do know that something is going on have no idea what it is about nor what the demands of the protesters are. Seems to me like the strike is doomed to complete failure, I just wonder how long it’s going to take for them to lose all enthusiasm and just stop.
Coming during the weekend: A short essay on Ron Haviv, Vivisect fest and how I discovered war photography (and, indirectly, photojournalism)
