Pride on the streets
With about a month and a half of delay today I am sharing the photos I took at this year’s Pride Parade in Malmö, Sweden. As usual the parade was the conclusion of Pride week in town on a Saturday. This year the warm-up was in the park next to Malmöhus Castle, the Renaissance castle that once held the Danish mint, among other things through the years.
This photo tickles me a fair bit, since it was just one of those moments when I saw the birds come flying REALLY low and close to the crowds and quickly raised my camera to my face. I honestly don’t remember if I was able to focus through the viewfinder or if I just blindfired it. I have an 18-55 mmm lens on my Fujifilm XT-3 so this was a fairly wide shot. The closest bird was probably within centimeters of me being able to grab it, had I chosen that option rather than capturing it with my camera. Definitely a lot closer than I’d expect a bird to be!
Once the warm-up had happened and everyone was ready they started their hours-long walk through the summer-warm streets of Malmö towards Folkets Park (The People’s Park) where the goal...or perhaps finish line was. Unlike some years in the past I did NOT try to catch the parade in several locations, this year I stuck with taking their pictures pretty much right after they’d left the warm-up area, right next to the old moat of the castle.
Here they come!
I feel I have written this on almost all the Pride Parade posts I’ve made over the years, but I feel like it’s nigh on compulsory to say that I fully support everyone’s right to be whoever they want to be, and to love whoever they want. My pictures are usually full of happy Parade participants and that’s a lot more fun than angry ones, but Pride is of course as much of a protest as it is a demonstration of joy. (and I’ve definitely written that before). My pictures are more focused on the joy, but I am not forgetting the other aspect.
