Photographer of protest

Daniel Nelson

I was in two minds about the new biopic of Nigerian-British photographer Misan Harriman — exciting shots of political demonstrations but is it a little too adulatory? —  until I read about right-wing cultural attacks on him.

Harriman was the first Black man to shoot a cover of British Vogue, a prominent photographer of the Black Lives Matter movement and is, perhaps most tellingly, chair of the board of trustees of the prestigious Southbank Centre. 

Is he, to some, deemed out of place in British cultural life? Above his station? That would be a serious charge against his critics, as serious as their own criticisms of a couple of his comments about Reform voters and about the April 2026 attack on two Jewish men in north London.

After weeks of pressure, in June 2026 he confirmed that he would not stand again as Trust chair beyond this autumn, a decision he said he had taken “before this madness”.

I don’t have a view on his performance as a trustee, but such attitudes made me take a closer look at Shoot The People, a documentary about his photos of global protest movements that drive social change. 

There’s no doubt about the power of his pictures. They are vivid and compelling and give a real feeling of the passion of protest. 

My reservations about the film are not the quality of his work, or his commitment to progressive causes, to human rights and equality. It’s simply that the quality of the high-octane film-making slightly overstates the case for Harriman as hero. Yes, his father was largely missing in action, he faced constant racism at boarding school in the UK and later “had to work hard, just to fit in”, and of course receives hate mail for his work, but as he says, “I’m not a world leader, I’m not a politician, I take photographs.” He observes the human condition, bears witness, and makes art with a purpose.

He wades into the vortex of demos and is honest about his experiences (“Human beings can be monsters”) and about what photographs can achieve: “What I’ve learned after shooting people on three continents us that we are better together.”

He has much to be proud of, not least in turning his life around after a spell in Covid lockdown: ”I didn’t know who I was supposed to be.”

The film captures the excitement of people who are fighting for a cause, a focus that is inspirational for protesters when the powers-that-be so often seem to be against them (“That’s the power of art. To say another world is possible and we have the power to change things”). It is part of the history of our times. It also features touching moments, including a moving local tribute in George Floyd Square, an interview with Trump-target US Representative Ilhan Omar, and Harriman’s own tribute to South African photographer and anti-apartheid activist Peter Magubane (“his pictures changed my life. He trained me without meeting me.”)

So last word to Magubane: “A struggle without documentation is no struggle at all.”