Dear Vicky: Le Mouvement des Parapluies

Hello, everyone!

Happy Easter Monday. I am still a bit confused by how the resurrection of someone is now celebrated with bunnies, eggs, and chocolate. But that’s just me.

Over the weekend, søren k. harbel published a post on umbrellas. It is a fun one, and you can read it here. In the post, Søren was kind to mention my own interest in the same topic and suggested to all readers to share their own umbrella photos. Of course, I am happy to oblige.

I have posted about umbrellas before, and the photos are mostly mundane, or light hearted. Today, I thought I’d try something different, something a little sombre.

It was a day in late September 2014. My wife and I were in Taiwan. I did not have mobile service, so I was off social media, and I didn’t check the news the whole day. I turned on my phone back in the hotel, and news from Hong Kong flooded my screen. Hong Kong police launched tear gas into crowds of peaceful protestors. It was the first day of the months-long protest known as “Occupy Central.” As the tear gas canisters started to fly, the protestors did not have much to shield themselves from the harmful substance, so they opened their umbrellas. The yellow umbrella instantly became the emblem of the protest. And Occupy Central is also known as the Umbrella Movement.

Not to make it about myself, but I was at the time trying to get into photojournalism. The first thing I did after returning from my trip was to go out to different protest sites and take photos. I had to say, the atmosphere at the time wasn’t as serious or pessimistic as warranted. It felt like a giant garden party where people came to hang out. There were college students offering tutoring for younger children, mobile libraries, and even organised recycling processes way better than what the government came up with before or since. The protests lasted well into December, with the last blockade outside the government headquarters cleared a fortnight before Christmas. I kept going out and taking photos, but somewhere during that two and a half months, my outlook for Hong Kong changed. It’s a long story I wouldn’t bore you with. Here are some umbrellas photos from that time.

The yellow umbrella.

A statue holding an umbrella outside government HQ.

To quote John Lennon.

Side note: an outdoor staircase outside the government HQ was covered with post-it notes supporting the protest, and it was named the Lennon Wall. The night before the last blockade was removed, all the post-it notes and artworks were collected and archived.

A rainy night.

An umbrella on an overpass.

Man with umbrella.

Community.

The last night.

An umbrella in the crowd.

There it is. Not the most cheerful thing I’ve posted, but it could be a lot worse. Thank you for bearing witness to my rambling, and I hope you find peace and love in this crazy and stupid time.