Renowned photographer Misan Harriman on Black Lives Matter, Gaza and finding hope in protest

“We had just witnessed the lynching and murder of George Floyd. It could have been me. In many ways, I was photographing my own trauma,” Misan Harriman says as he recalls photographing the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in London five years ago. Those images catapulted his career almost overnight.

“When you’re photographing your own trauma, there’s something that lives between the highlights and the shadows of those images. It’s undeniable. The world was coming out of lockdown and we witnessed one of the biggest civil rights movements of our time. I was proud of this country. We came out, all colours, all races, and we said: ‘We can do better.’”

Harriman’s photographs captured widespread attention and caught the eye of then British Vogue editor Edward Enninful, who commissioned Harriman to shoot the illustrious September cover of the magazine, featuring Marcus Rashford and Adwoa Aboah.

It made Harriman the first Black man to photograph the cover of British Vogue in its 104-year history.

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He has since become a renowned celebrity photographer – the stars in his books include Angelina Jolie, Stormzy, Tom Cruise and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. He is also an Oscar-nominated filmmaker for his Netflix short The After, starring David Oleweyo.

But despite being plunged into this world of glamour, Harriman continues to document protest and drive change. His first solo exhibition ‘The Purpose of Light’ at Hope 93 Gallery in London captures powerful stories of activism, identity and resistance.

“I don’t buy into the bright lights and big city of celebrity – the vacuous influencer culture,” he says. “I’m 47 and have the privilege of having a platform. I have to use it to make the world gentler and kinder. I have two little girls, and I want to look them in the eye and say that I fought tooth and nail with my camera and my voice to allow them to inherit a better world.”

Harriman held off from doing a solo exhibition in the first few years of his career. He felt his work needed space to breathe. “No one can predict the future, but what’s happened in those five years has become some sort of episode of Black Mirror. I’ve been honoured, in many ways, to capture the humanity that exists.”

He says this is a world where the “queer and trans community are under attack, people don’t believe in climate change, people are overtly and unapologetically racist in every form”.

Harriman has tried to find hope beyond hate – photographing grandmothers in Norfolk with their Zimmer frames who believe that this Britain is not good enough, a rabbi and an imam standing together on the embankment in London, and a white man holding up a sign which reads: ‘I am now realising my own Islamophobia.’

“With everything that’s going on in the world, we are living through a time of protest like I’ve never seen before, and it’s important to recognise that as something that we should be proud of, because it’s us trying to hold the powerful to account,” Harriman says.

He speaks to the Big Issue in the week that the Home Office has labelled Palestine Action a terrorist organisation – meaning that joining or expressing support for the group is a crime punishable by up to 14 years in prison. It has intensified alarm that protest is under threat.

Harriman is a fierce advocate against the killing and starvation of people in Gaza. He has photographed marches for Palestine and, as an ambassador for Save the Children, he recently went to Egypt to run a photography workshop with children who have had to flee Gaza. 

“It has changed me forever,” he says. “I think we’re fighting for the soul of humanity, and we will be haunted by the ghosts of the dead children and the screams of the living if we don’t do everything in our power to help them. It is a single most important issue of our times. 

“I scream about the children in Sudan and Congo, I really do, but everyone in the humanitarian world has confirmed that nothing comes near what is happening to children in Gaza. If we as a country have any part in that that isn’t stopping it, then we have lost our soul. The stakes are that high. Everyone says: ‘Misan, you’re so brave about speaking about it.’ I’m like: ‘Why am I brave? Who are we if we don’t try and protect the children?’”

Harriman says some people are uncomfortable with his work. He faces an “army of trolls” online.

“I believe that women should have control of their own bodies. I believe climate change is real. I believe racism is real. I believe children in Gaza should not be having their limbs amputated. There are people that, amazingly, have issues with that,” he adds.

Harriman never imagined he might become one of the most widely shared photographers of this age. He worked in finance before he founded digital platform What We Seee in 2017. 

The British Vogue cover was his first professional job. Until then, he was a self-confessed hobbyist.

 “I didn’t have any self-love, or self-belief,” he admits. “The thing about self-doubt is that it makes you think that these things are not for you. I met my wife, and she fell in love with all those parts of me and allowed me to believe that maybe I could have a point of view.”

Asked where that self-doubt came from, Harriman explains that he is neurodivergent and dyslexic. “I failed every exam I pretty much ever took. Things are much easier now, but in the 80s and 90s, people with my way of decoding the world were not necessarily seen as human beings that would amount to much. 

“There was shame because I wasn’t neurotypical and did not thrive in the typical sense of school. I carried that with me for a big part of my life. I speak about that openly because I want parents and people that work in education to recognise that people with different minds may actually have the answers to fix some of the problems that we have in the world.”

He has found success now, but he is also someone who has “struggled with anxiety, that is neurodivergent, that is trying to figure things out, that has failed a lot in life”. 

“I’m not this superhero. I want the world to see that, because we’re in this age of influencer perfection. That is not real. I don’t know anyone that has all the answers. I know a lot of people that are trying just to be good. Trying to be good is enough. That’s what I’m trying to be.”

Harriman is currently working on his first feature film, and a documentary Shoot the People was recently made about his life and protest photography.

There’s a scene in it where an archivist is asked whether he would consider great civil rights photographer Peter Magubane an activist. The archivist replies: ‘He was a freedom fighter.’

“I don’t quite consider myself that because Peter put his life at risk by taking pictures,” Harriman says. “But I do think that my camera is my sword and my shield. It’s there to protect the voiceless, but also fight for the voiceless.”

It is a year on from the violent far-right riots which raged across the UK. These were followed by huge counter protests of people standing up against racism. It was these peaceful demonstrations of hope and love which Harriman chose to capture.

As a father of a five-year-old and a seven-year-old, but also just as a man, Harriman feels a responsibility to join their calls and demand a better world.

“A big part of the mess that we’re in globally has a lot to do with toxic patriarchy – whether it’s men that are dropping bombs on people, whether it’s men telling us to be afraid of queer people. I could go on all day. I think 80% of my Instagram following is women. 

“Many of the marches I go to it’s predominantly women. I’m not saying women are perfect, but my god, you are leading from the front in terms of trying to make this world a little bit gentler. The patriarchy needs to reset itself, which is something that I shout about a lot.”

Harriman says there is one image which will feature in his exhibition which brings him to tears regularly. It is a simple image of a white British woman holding up a sign saying: “These days will define us.”

“Because they will,” Harriman says. “They really will.”

The Purpose of Light by Misan Harriman exhibits at Hope 93 Gallery from 10 July to 18 September. For more information, visit: www.hope93.com 

A screening of the documentary Shoot the People will be held at the Festival of Collective Liberation on 19 July.

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