If it is the country I am thinking of that meets what you have said above then I'd be far from sure that anything near a protest other than maybe a very small camera or the ubiquitous i phone camera will not be a problem. A monopod, for instance, might well be spotted by those who will be on the look-out for anything resembling a potential weapon such as a monopod and are authorised to act first and ask questions later
The British Foreign office advises against all travel to the country I have in mind.
Still this has to be purely speculation on my part and presumably you have carefully weighed up all the risks and opportunities wherever it is you are going
Best of luck
pentaxuser
I'm with pentaxuser. There's peaceful march, there's protest, and there's protest that turns into riot. If you are dealing with the latter, you — a self-described amateur, without press identification — will have to remain pretty far on the outside if you don't want to put yourself in danger. The Hasselblad might be good for photographing the aftermath, as the streets are emptying or once they are empty, but if you are indeed dealing with a riot (or the possibility of) and you absolutely want to shoot this on film, then any solid SLR with either a zoom or a small variety of lenses and a good meter will be much more adequate.
And by "variety of lenses" I include a good telephoto. Things turn violent, you don't know how far you might have to go in order to shoot what's happening, if you don't want to get in the middle of it.
Look what happened in Bengladesh the past few days. Student protesters clashing with police. It got very violent, and very chaotic. Press photographers had to stay far during the clashes, which did not prevent them from taking powerful pictures, as shown in this
New York Times article (sorry, paywall protected). I've put a few photos below.
I would add that press photographers are provided special training for these circumstances. Photographing a peaceful march can be done by anybody, with just about any equipment, from 35mm to hand-held 4x5, but when in the midst of a clash between riot police and protesters, you need that training to tell you how to stay safe and still get the shot.
Again, not knowing where this takes place, who is protesting and what (or who) they are protesting against — in other words, what chances there are this remains peaceful or veers into rioting — makes it near impossible to adequately give you advice on which gear would be best.
If you believe you might be caught in a situation that can become violent, my suggestion is to find a way to talk to a professional photojournalist who has been in this situation before and get advice on both which gear to take and how to stay safe.
If you know the situation has absolutely no danger of turning violent, then earlier advice stands : take what equipment you know how to use to its full advantages. Mastery of one's photo equipment takes time and a lot of practice, as does mastery of shooting black and white film. If there is no chance the situation can become violent or chaotic, don't buy more gear, focus on and learn to use what you already have.
Bengladesh riots this week by Reuters photojournalist Mohammad Ponir Hossain: