“When I look around at what is happening today, it’s hard not to feel helpless. I’ve never known a time when humans have been more divided. It seems as though we are heading towards something truly catastrophic” – Misan Harriman
This quote is the opening line to Shoot The People, a brand-new film about photographer and activist Misan Harriman. His words may be chilling but this is a documentary that seeks to shine a light through these dark times. It seeks to help galvanise us and reinforce the idea that protest is a powerful option for the many when so much control is in the hands of the few. To paraphrase the synopsis, the film showcases the intersectionality of global political movements, collective power, and offers historical context, interviews with activists, and those who participate in digital activism.
Director Andy Mundy-Castle has brought a meta-quality to the documentary as his camera follows Harriman on a journey that starts in the peace of his bucolic home contrasted against his photographing a pro-Palestinian march in London. We see his meeting with Martin Luther King III (MLK’s son), as they talk about racial injustice and civil rights activism. There is time spent in Johannesburg, South Africa, to reflect on Peter Margubane‘s images of apartheid brutality that haunted Harriman’s childhood, “the visual poetry of his work has shaped so much of why I do what I do“. The last section leads Harriman to 38th & Chicago Avenue in America on the 4th anniversary of the murder of George Floyd at the hands of the police.
Harriman has a politeness and warmth in the way he interacts with people so they respond positively when he stops and asks them to pose for a picture. He says he will spend more time observing and engaging with people than taking pictures. So many of his protest images are striking face-on pictures and, rather than feel like manipulation, I believe Harriman’s empathy with his subject’s beliefs – ones in which he also agrees – adds emotional depth to the images and helps amplifies their defiant stance. A perfect example of this is the activist carrying the placard that said, “WHY IS ENDING RACISM A DEBATE”.
The often-dispassionate eye of the photographer, particularly in newspaper journalism and war photography, means the image has often had to ‘speak for itself’. I think particularly of Don McCullin’s haunting picture of the US marine in Vietnam whose face is fixed in a trauma-fed 1,000-yard stare, and Dorothea Lange’s photograph ‘Migrant Mother’. But Harriman has his political views and activism to guide his lens, coupled with his ability to draw on his portraiture experience photographing Rhianna, Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts, and Cate Blanchett. These two parts of Harriman’s photographic life feed into one another perfectly, and allow political images to have the intimacy of portraiture as much as his portraiture can bring the power of activism to bear on celebrity.
Misan Harriman is a self-taught photographer who uses his camera and his voice to “inspire and provoke thought, creating images that resonate deeply with audiences around the world”. He has the skill to capture wide shots that allow the viewer’s eye to roam over a picture and apply their own mental crop, highlight or focus, but also has the nuance to use a narrow focal plane to draw the eye to a pin-sharp while everything else is defocused. Also, in this film he is a compelling interviewer showing deep respect for the people he talks to and a humility in letting them tell their story.
“If history teaches us anything, when humanity is being confronted by a big challenge or a big injustice, those troubled only move forward if large numbers of ordinary people stand up and say ‘enough is enough and no more’”
With the unstable state of politics at the moment, and with people’s opinions being more polarised than ever, Shoot The People is an important film that shows how activism (and a great placard) can be the spark to inspire people to use protest to give voice to injustice. Harriman maybe softly spoken but his camera is screaming for us to get involved.
“Bearing witness…this is the work – Misan Harriman.
Shoot The People is in UK cinemas from 6 July.
Andy Mundy-Castle: Instagram / Misan Harriman: Instagram / Watermelon Pictures: Instagram
Review by Paul F Cook
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