Crowd control

Courtesy the world’s worst amateur photographer, the crazy scene today in “Red Square”, in Federal Capital:

The crowd estimate, according to the (Federal) Ministry of Truth, was 7,000. A private radio station said it was 15,000. Private TV prefers the less-committal “thousands”.

(FWIW, said photographer says the 7,000 figure, factoring in the neighbouring closed-off streets, is probably closest to the truth.)

Notice how, in order to get a shot of the plaza from ground level, using only a pocket camera without a wide-angle lens, showing most (about 90%) of the crowd, it was necessary to (crudely) stitch together two separate shots.

If the Ottawa Senators crowd is 7,000 people, then there is no way that the St. John’s “Trust and Confidence” crowd was 3500, or 3000, or even 1500.

Or, alternatively, “multiplying the sample selection”, subtracting the hypotenuse, and dividing the result by the cube root of pi, if Non-Partisan National Rally To Show Non-Partisan Support For Glorious Leader had 1500 in attendance, the Ottawa crowd pictured above is, in fact, over 35,000 people. If Non-Partisan National Rally To Show Non-Partisan Support For Glorious Leader had 3500 show up, then the Red Rally had over 80,000 militants.

It is unusual, though, that in this day of almost ubiquitous digital photographic equipment, neither the According2 or NLDL websites have yet produced a shot even remotely similar to the one above in terms of field of view.

Why’s that?