On the same day as this year’s Worldwide Pillow Fighting Day the EDL decided to hold a demonstration in Oxford. Good timing! That in turn brought out a large gathering of United Against Fascism demonstrators which led to a massive Police presence in Oxford City Centre which I have never seen before. The Police did a fantastic job of keeping both parties away from each other and the EDL were so well penned in opposite the Police station on St Aldates that whatever message they were trying to get across fell on deaf ears.

From there I went to photograph the pillow fight in Catte Street which was a completely different vibe and fun to get in amongst even if it meant getting bopped on the head a number of times. I decided to use my panoramic camera to try to capture a sense of how many people were there. To be honest I think there were more people photographing the event than pillow fighters but it was a lot of fun. Unfortunately the film ripped off the spool inside the camera when I was winding on the last frame so I was unable to load a second roll. I had to remove the film in a changing bag and the film got scratched when I pulled the film out. A bit of a shame but not the end of the world.

[Tech info:] Zenit S3 Pro Horizon, Ilford HP5, processed in Kodak HC110 1+31 for 5mins.