The 40th London Arba’een Procession 2020 (HP5+ @800) – by Simon King

It’s very troubling that my article about photographing the 2019 Arba’een procession is now a year old – time ought not be allowed to move this quickly! Whether or not the procession would take place this year was for in doubt for a little while after a fresh round of restrictions were announced, but the organisers managed to obtain permission via risk assessment and voluntary self-enforcement of some of the guidelines. I was very excited to see how the day would play out, with all of these factors in mind.

I knew that there would be many changes to the visuals I would be working with this year compared to last – religious ornamentation and ceremony combined with the protective paraphernalia of gloves, masks, and visors. Prayer mats required more space, the large gathering itself needed to be divided into chunks of 6, and the procession itself would need to be longer in order to allow distance between the participants.

I did my best to balance a documentation of these newer elements and the way they coexisted alongside the more ancient and traditional  practices.

These images are all from my M6 (paired with my 90mm APO) loaded with HP5+, metered at 800. I stand developed in fresh Rodinol, at 1:100 for two hours at 20° and was very happy with the technical results.

Thanks for taking the time to look at my images from this years Arba’een procession!
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I buy all of my film from Analogue Wonderland.

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