Story by Tony Martins  /  Photographs by Jonathan Lorange

As the impassioned debates, contradictory reports, and demands for inquiries and resignations continue in the aftermath of the Toronto G20 summit, one thing has become clear: the issues and controversies that arose are far too complex to be rendered in black and white.

Pardoxically, however, capturing the ground-level action of the marchers, vandalism, and violence with black and white images can be a powerful way to convey the complexity of the event. That’s why Ottawa photographer Jonathan Lorange joined up with three friends and hit the streets of Toronto last weekend.

“It seemed like the kind of experience where you have to be there to fully understand,” reasoned Lorange, who made an effort to remain as neutral as possible while following the protests and skirmishes as they surged and swirled around the summit security fence.

“I consider that there is still a place for humanistic photojournalism in the present world,” said Lorange. “I try to position myself between two extremes: on one side, there is the corporate media that is running its news department as a buisness; on the other side, there is the overly critical position of so-called independant journalism that sees conspiracy theories everywhere.”

After being pleasantly surprised at the restraint shown by police on the Saturday of the summitt, Lorange noted that Sunday turned nasty. That’s when police became aggressive, arresting some 900 protestors, and leaving many more bruised, beaten, bloodied and outraged.

Many police actions seemed unncessarily harsh—and many were certainly illegal. Lorange himself was subjected to police searches three times in a half-hour period on Sunday. The searches were abitrary, and, as it has been finally determined, clearly against the law.

“They [the police] didn’t have the legal authority to do it, but they had the power—and they did it.”

Even though Lorange was saddened and fearful of eroded civil liberties, he steadfastly retains an objective view of the complex events.

“It is too easy to simply say that cops were assholes and I feel there is something more interesting to see in their behaviour. The same is true regarding protesters.”

Masked and mostly anonymous, the police may have seemed like fearless soldiers in the mainstream media, but Lorange recalls seeing a female officer whose hands were shaking with so much fear that she struggled mightily to pull on one of her black gloves.

As for the protestors, Lorange saw and photographed a huge variety of people, families, and groups—including “communists and south vietnamese exiles, pro-life and pot legalization movements”—the vast majority of whom were causing no trouble.

“The only thing everyone had in common is that there were dissatisfied with the world they were living in,” said Lorange.

“I am very worried about the shrinking of our spaces of liberty,” Lorange reflected, “and I think that society as a whole should feel the same. If the possibility of resolving conflicts by words were to disappear, we can be certain that more and more groups would resort to violence to pursue their objectives—and that would be of terrible consequences to our democratic system.”

“What we experienced at this G20 Summit, as well as in all those that preceded it, is the consequence of a generalized failure of our society and government to ensure a discussion ethic. Be it for structural, economical, or systemic reasons, this failure is nonetheless endemic in our world and is endangering our democracy.”