I have never been a war photographer; I never want to be a war photographer.  I never photographed a riot and I hope I never will.  On Shrove Tuesday (Mardi Gras) the MV Magellan was docked in Ponta Delgada in The Azores.  Each year, the town celebrates Mardi Gras by having a massive water fight along the main road through the town.  It was great fun but also a little scary at times, some of the images I captured reminded me of photographs of rioters and the aftermath looked like a war zone.  Let me tell you what happened and the photographic lessons I learned from it.

I had seen one of the huge truck laden with water bombs in a side street and knowing the fight was going to take place I followed in down on to the main road.  As I arrived at the main square I could see the preparations taking place:  barrels full to overflowing with balloons containing water, then pickup trucks laden with plastic bags full of water started to arrive and began to unload their cargo into the square.

At first, there was a general air of anticipation, children eager to play started throwing water bombs at each other.  The occasional bag of water landed at my feet and splashed up at me.  It was all a bit of fun.  Then I became aware of two groups teenagers in one of the covered colonnades having a bit of battle.  I went over to photograph it.

After experimenting a little with my settings I eventually settled on ISO 100, Aperture Priority with f/5.6.  It was a bright day and out in the open, this meant I was getting shutter speeds of between 1/200s and 1/1250s certainly fast enough to freeze the action but with a depth of field that wasn’t too shallow.  However, in the colonnades, the shutter speed did drop below 1/100s but I decided I could live with that.

The next decision I need to make was what direction was I going to shoot.  There is a general rule for photographing water that you really want to get the light behind the water and passing through it.  This makes the water sparkle and glow.  So when photographing the teens in the colonnade I decided to shoot towards the sun (actually it wasn’t directly towards it but it was at about 10 o’clock (assuming I am in the middle of the clock face and the camera is pointing at 12 o’clock).  You can clearly see the sparkling in the image because of this.

As the fight progressed and more and more people were getting involved and getting soaked, I turned my attention to photographing the reactions of the people who were getting wet.  People were laughing, smiling and shielding themselves from the water that was being thrown at them.  My favourite reaction images are the three girls shielding themselves (above) and the smiling passenger from the ship (below).

As the fight progressed, we were subject to regular ‘patrols’ of the large lorries carry plenty of water bombs and even hoses.  They also had on board teams of men who knew how to look after themselves such as the local firemen.  It was at this point that I began to understand why many people were wearing some sort of helmet or head protection.  When these guys threw bags of water at you – they did so with quite some force.  To protect myself and my camera gear, I opted to photograph the lorries from behind a tree with just the camera lens sticking out and keeping a careful eye on what was being thrown in my direction.

In the gaps between the lorry patrols I would venture out into the fray.  Despite keeping a very keen eye on my surrounding I was hit a couple of times by the water bombs, mostly on my side and on my camera rucksack (which had its waterproof cover deployed and well tested).  One bag of water did strike me on the side of the head – which stung for a few minutes.  I still managed to get my favourite image from the day – one of the colonnades with four or five teenagers getting soaked as a water bomb explodes near them.

By the end of the water fight, so many bags had been thrown that it was almost impossible to see the road surface below them.  It truly did look like the aftermath of a major conflict or riot.  And although I did leave some images in colour when I did my post-processing I decided to convert the majority of them to black and white to give more of a reportage feel to them.  As usual, my Lightroom workflow for black and white conversion includes adding contrast and clarity and using the blacks slider to ensure I had some deep blacks in the image.

As I walked back to the ship I thought about what I had experienced.  It was a fun day, and I didn’t mind getting soaked.  But it was also a day that made me think.  It was that bag hitting me on the head which made me think the most.  It was only a bag of water that hit me, in a good-natured but huge water fight.  Had this been a real war zone or real riot, then it wouldn’t have been water, and a single blow to the head could be much worse.  It was at that point that I suddenly developed a huge respect for the many photographers who cover wars and riots.  I thought I had a good awareness of my surroundings and I still took a hit.  The people who work in war zones and riots take risks, they can’t let their concentration drop for a moment.  For most photographers, the worst that can happen from letting your concentration slip is a blurred out of focus image.  For war photographers, a lapse of concentration could be fatal.

So to all war and riot photographers everywhere – I salute you.

Ian.