The Million Mask March is a coordinated global event held on November 5 each year — the anniversary of the Guy Fawkes gunpowder plot — in which Anonymous-affiliated activists gather in public spaces wearing the mask from the film V for Vendetta. The Brisbane march assembled at South Bank and moved through the CBD.
The photography presents a specific challenge: when everyone is wearing the same face, the usual tools of portrait photography — expression, eye contact, the particular way a face holds an emotion — are unavailable. You work instead with body language, costume variation, and the moments of human contact between people whose faces you cannot see.
On the mask as photographic subject: The Guy Fawkes mask is designed to be expressive — the painted smile, the arched brows — but it reads the same in every photograph. The way I found to differentiate between subjects was to look at what surrounded the mask: the clothes people paired it with, whether they had modified it (sunglasses fitted over the eyeholes, paint added), what they carried. The woman who wore hers with a statement necklace and a pale blue handbag was photographically interesting precisely because of the contrast.
On the variation: Not everyone at the Million Mask March wore the same mask. There were variations — ornate half-masks, hockey masks, hand-decorated versions — that broke the visual monotony and allowed for more individual portraits. The person with the elaborate costume assembled from robes and an ornate white mask, carrying the Anonymous flag, had put real effort into her appearance.
On being photographed while photographing: One of the subjects I made images of was himself photographing, mask on, camera held out. There is a specific quality to the image of a photographer at a political event who is also a participant in what they are documenting. The peace sign was his own addition.
The Million Mask March is a small event in Brisbane by global standards. The photographs are documents of who shows up.