I don't tend to post political issues on my 100 Stranger Stories, but as one of my strangers at Nottingham Pride was a Tory Councillor, I thought I ought to redress the balance and therefore I am pleased to introduce to you Dora.
I met Dora in Nottingham on Saturday. Dora and some of her friends had a "Labour Party Stop Brexit" information stall in Hockley.
Dora handed me a pamphlet and I started chatting to her about both Brexit and herself.
Dora is Greek and came to the UK in 1997. She's a member of the Labour party and spoke passionately about Brexit. I asked her if she was a Councillor , Dora told me she wasn't a Councillor as she believed their were better people in the party who could do the job locally. She said that the "Stop Brexit" movement in the party was gathering momentum and had gained lots of support from rank and file members at the recent annual conference in Liverpool. She was involved in local politics in Greece before she moved to England.
She told me that they had had a lot of interest in the stall in the morning.
Dora has a degree in Mathematics and Stats and helped the party with data analysis.
When I approached the subject of 100 strangers and asked Dora for a photo she was very keen to have her photo took.
Technically it was a difficult shot as it was very windy on Saturday morning and it was also very sunny, so we had wind and random reflected light bouncing around. After the shoot I noticed my usual settings of ISO 400 , f5.6 had produced quite a low shutter speed , which quite surprised me. Maybe my recent experiments with manual lenses put me off guard when viewing settings in the viewfinder. Despite the relative low shutter speed (by my standards) Dora's picture holds its own among my stranger photos.
I gave Dora my card and she said she would contact me. She said her daughter would like to look at her photos as she was interested in photography.
As for Brexit. I think I can confidently state that no matter which way you voted in the referendum, the whole Brexit process being managed by the government has turned into one big shambolic debacle and is totally embarrassing. No one knew what they were voting for, The referendum was ill thought and rushed to the ballot box. Politicians, both Brexiteers and Remainers, did not have time to make reasoned arguments and gather proper facts . I don't think I had a rant there , I am just stating facts !
Thanks for being stranger 147 Dora. I hope you like this photo and narrative.
To find out more about the 100 Strangers project and see pictures taken by other photographers, look at the 100 Strangers Flickr Group page
https://www.flickr.com/groups/100strangers/
My own strangers can be seen here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/phil_howcroft/albums/72157657822400168
@quietpurplehaze resignation , there will be plenty of those happening Haze !
@fbailey Felicity my grandad said never discuss politics or religion with your friends as it was a guaranteed way to lose them ! That is why I have attempted to be neutral in my narrative , although I did make an observation about the poor post process talks !
@ellida thanks graham , glad you like this :)
Sadly, I think this lady is fighting for a lost cause. I'd be willing to bet that although it's still possible to change our minds about leaving the EU, it won't happen. I'd love to have to eat my words but I don't think it will be necessary.
You've done a splendid job of maintaining as much neutrality as possible in your narrative. Not easy. nice one.