John Myers

My name is John Myers I have been a Staff press photographer for nearly 20-years most of that time spent working for Walesonline and it's previous forms. My first submission is from the kill the bill riots in Bristol where I worked on The Bristol Post for 12 months over the pandemic when Reach was restructuring. My shift started covering a large protest in Bristol College Green which at the time was banned due to covid regulations. The protests started in good spirits but as the day wore on people became more hostile to the police culminating with rioting outside Bridewell police station. At the time the only camera I had was a Nikon D5 and a broken 24mm to 70mm lens stuck on 24mm so the only way I was going to get the photos I needed was to put myself in the middle of the rioting which antagonised many of the protesters to the point during the evening I was physically and verbally abused when stopping my camera being smashed. the verbal abuse became so bad with whole crowds of people chanting Bristol post to f**k off. The decision was made that it was too dangerous for us to stay. unfortunately this was 10 minutes before the rioters started to set fire to police vans and i missed catching some of the most dramatic pictures of the night. my second entry is a candid shot of a Bristol post reporter Robin Murray taken during a very mundane story of the price of shopping at Waitrose where he was attacked by a seagull. my third submission is of a flash flood in Port Talbot, south wales. using my local knowledge of the area while driving down the M4 I could see a heavy rainstorm blowing in from the Bristol Channel so I position myself where I knew possible flash flooding would occur but I had no idea just how bad the flooding would be. with no wet weather gear for myself or the camera I improvise a cover out of an old plastic bag that i found in the boot to protect the camera from the worst of the rain. i then waited through knee-high water for 30 minutes to get these impressive shots