To “shoot the people“ means not only to capture them, but to bear witness, and to use the camera as aweapon of testimony. Such is the ethos of Andy Mundy-Castle’s documentaryShoot the People, which follows Nigerian-British photographer and activist Misan Harriman – the first Black male photographer to shoot the cover of British Vogue – as he traces decades of injustice through the lens of acamera. Together, Mundy-Castle and Harriman chart how one generation of protesters passes something down to the next, and how the photographer’s job is to ensure none of it goes unseen.
Harriman’s archive of black-and-white portraits appears throughout, from demonstrators at apro-Palestine march in London to mourners gathered at George Floyd’s memorial site in Minneapolis. He recalls the single image that catapulted his career – aphotograph taken at aBlack Lives Matter protest that went viral after being shared by Martin Luther King III, who also appears in the film. Shoot the People is at its best when it allows the photographs speak for themselves. Harriman’s occasional musings on his own success can sometimes feel more self-indulgent than illuminating.
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The film doesn’t shy away from the tension of Harriman’s own wealth and status. He is aphotographer caught between documenting injustice and profiting from the social capital it brings. This materialises when he attends the 96th Academy Awards, where Harriman’s nominated short film The After placed him inside one of Hollywood’s most exclusive spaces while protests raged outside. It’s an irony that shadows both Harriman and the film itself.
A particular highlight is the film’s tribute to South African photographer Peter Magubane, who famously documented the brutality of apartheid. Here the film becomes an homage to the photographers who came before Harriman, whose courage and work made his own possible. It left me wishing for more – more Magubane, and more of the wider lineage of protest photography to which Harriman is so clearly indebted. Ultimately, Shoot the People succeeds more as acelebration of photography than as aportrait of asingle photographer.