A Policeman and his MP5

I was around parliament today (16/05/09) in Westminster London, and I decided to ask a policeman at one of the gates if I could take a photograph of his gun.
He was a very nice guy and said yes, of course. Well, I couldn't believe it!

I got down on one knee and took this shot of his MP5.

Married With An MP5

[IMG]http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j159/paulyrichard/policemanmp5contrastlowBWbordere-2.jpg[/IMG]

So......you actually kneel down for the police force ?
Just kidding Paul. Although for obvious reasons you don't see his face, I like this one.
The wedding ring gives him a touch of humanity. It would have been so easy to show him off as a robotic non human machine.
Armed to the teeth and ready to..........
But you didn't. Instead ......you pictured a man with a family, ready to do his job if necessary, but hoping he never has to...

well done

Martin.

Thanks Martin.

I couldn't believe his good nature, Martin. I was expectin' him to tell me to be on my way, but it was the opposite.
To any other observer watchin' on the street, I must've looked absurd down on one knee like this.

After experiencin' this response, I even had a mad thought about documentin' the Police Force in the future.

Paul,
I have very good friends who are in the force, and I do train with some who are actually in the riot police squad. And I can tell you that they are absolutely fantastic and very good hearted guys.

There is a perception that the men in blue are heartless, sometimes due to personal experiences or things that are in the news, but if we look at it realistically the vast majority and the bigger proportion of them are extraordinarily friendly and with a great human heart.

I say this based on personal experiences and I have been on both sides of the receiving end.

The bad experiences, amongst quite a few that I could recount, one of them was being stopped at the airport while flying from abroad and being kept there for 7 long hours. Reason for that? Because I was not of european origin and was holding an EEC passport, and although I lived here and my official residence was here for 6 years at that time for them it still meant nothing. They just suspected that I had a fake passport.

I was fuming when finally they let me off, obviously because they had no grounds to hold me, and they told me they had to check with the portuguese authorities and confirm my citizenship before allowing me in.

But for every bad experience I have had I have tens of good ones, including some with whom I have become very good friends.

They do indeed have a very human side to them and they do perform a very hard job, and unfortunately many are tarnished due to the bad attitude of the few.

That is great shot, well worth it.

Regards
PaulM

Paul, I consider this to be a rare shot and congratulate you for having the balls to ask.

Two of my brothers are in the police, Met and City. They love their jobs and I have a lot of respect for them.

Well done for capturing a great shot

I think you should consider doing that because yout style of photography would be great and would tell a story that rarely gets told.

Paul

Nice one

I wonder if he's as good a shot as you

The only criticism I have is some of the whites seem burned out and I'm not keen on the white sleeve dominating the top left corner though I dont know how you'd have got round it with this crop, can you pull the whites back I wonder or are they blown on the original? having said that I dont really mind the over white fingernail on the trigger finger as it draws your eye to the main tool of his trade

Apart from this theres a good range of tones in the image, so the question is are you going to share your B&W conversion process with us or keep it a secret?

Paul, Paul and Impo' thanks.

Paul, Paul and Impo' thanks.

Those highlights are blown on the original, which I hate with a vengeance now, 'cos the more I look at this shot the more I like it as a document. I only intended it to be a fun shot at first.

There is no secret to my B&W treatment. I shoot my images in RAW colour, I then convert 'em over to B&W usin' Pentax's own Photo Lab software. Here is where I tweak the contrast maybe and add a filter, then I convert it to JPEG.

In JPEG form I then use some free software programs to try and achieve a good range of tones. I don't own any expensive software like CS3 or 4 etc. so I don't have the ability to selectively dodge and burn, which at the moment I am gaggin' for.
Generally, I jus' play around with contrast and curve settings.

I hope to invest in somethin' soon, somethin' like Silkypix or Elements 7, I don't know if these two have the facility for dodgin' and burnin'?

Hi, Pauly,

Another great shot

I hate to admit it but, after a seven-year stint in London some time ago, I don't have even one photo that comes close to your work. On post-processing (as they like to call it now), I used Photoshop for years but have now settled on Serif PhotoPlus as my software of choice. Few professionals (and I know many) come close to using even 20% of the features in Photoshop. I'm lucky if I've used 10% of features of PhotoPlus, which is well up to professional standards. If you send me a PM with your address, I'll happily send you a disc and instructions for PhotoPlus version 11, which I'm sure will do everything you want. Dodge and burn is no problem. Serif is quite happy for customers to pass on earlier versions when they upgrade in the hope that they get hooked on the product.

Keep up the good work, and I'd even even be prepared to cough up the postage if it would encourage you to produduce more splendid photos.

Al Rogers

Thanks a lot Al, appreciate it.

I like the authority that the shot represents , as well a sthe softside of it , Ie clean nales well groomed, like above this shot tells a story and i like it!

Thanks organic'.

Just had to revive this shot, as i have been reading about the home office and the publicity that us phtographers, dont want

Wow, you dug this one out from a long time ago, org'.

Hey Pauly, you sure do take the drifferent shots...Well done I say.