Pride is something I've wanted to photograph for quite sometime but it's something that I always think about or remember too late. This year I emailed the people dealing with Pride's press as they were having bands/acts in Trafalgar Square and I thought it might be cool to shoot some of those. I wasn't sure what the deal would be with cameras but thankfully the very kind people at Pride gave me a press pass.
I had to go and collect my pass from near Baker Street before hand. Once there I found out that my pass allowed me to attend a photo call with Boris Johnson and the rest of the head of the parade. Before that though, all of the people taking part in the parade were gathering and getting ready on the rest of Baker Street. It was really fun to walk up and down photographing the people.
The photo call was very surreal as being that close to someone like Boris Johnson and being surrounded by so many press photographers was something I've never really done before. Once the parade started we were allowed to stay in front of the parade and were walking 10-20 feet ahead of it all. There were quite a few photographers that were pushing their luck and despite being told to keep moving and keep their distance, they ignored everything they were being told. Some would stop or sneak round security and then complained when they were shouted at by security or physically moved. As you needed to have a pass to be on the street in front of/with the parade, there were other photographers jumping the barriers and hiding in with the pack of press photographers and then were complaining when they were told to leave for not having a pass. I really don't envy the security and pride staff that were controlling this but I think they handled it fairly well.
Once we'd gone down Oxford Street and were most of the way down Regent street they allowed us to move back through the rest of the parade with an escort until the front of the Parade had moved on far enough. They did a good job of talking to the photographers and being really friendly.
So I made my way back through the parade shooting the people and crowds and I had such a good time. It was so nice to be in the middle of such a massive celebration and worthwhile one at that. It made me feel like I was doing something good.
There was also a massive crowd in Trafalgar Square for the acts, it was nice walking around and taking some crowd shots. I got some wide shots of large chunks of the crowd that I'm quite happy with.
I chose to shoot only a couple of the acts as I was starting to get pretty exhausted but it was the first time I shot a festival size stage. It's not easy getting shots over the top of the stage and monitors with the equipment and it's quite hard getting the angles too.
The light throughout the day was constantly changing and it wasn't the easiest thing I've shot. I was having to change my settings a lot and there were a lot of shadows which weren't always easy to shoot through. I kept checking to see how they were coming out and on camera a lot of them looked massively over or under exposed and I was a bit worried about having wasted an opportunity (especially as I wasn't using flash). I haven't worked out using flash in the day without blowing out all of the shots. I chose to stick with black and white for the day as I thought I could get some really strong shots. This might seem strange because of how colourful a day it was from all the costumes and flags but I'm glad I did.
I'm really happy with how the whole day went and how my shots came out. I got a lot more photos than I was expecting to. It was really just what I needed as I've been really low on confidence, frustrated and questioning a lot of what I'm doing and being there really helped.
It would be cool if you checked out the set of photos on Flickr as there's almost 100 on there.
I had to go and collect my pass from near Baker Street before hand. Once there I found out that my pass allowed me to attend a photo call with Boris Johnson and the rest of the head of the parade. Before that though, all of the people taking part in the parade were gathering and getting ready on the rest of Baker Street. It was really fun to walk up and down photographing the people.
The photo call was very surreal as being that close to someone like Boris Johnson and being surrounded by so many press photographers was something I've never really done before. Once the parade started we were allowed to stay in front of the parade and were walking 10-20 feet ahead of it all. There were quite a few photographers that were pushing their luck and despite being told to keep moving and keep their distance, they ignored everything they were being told. Some would stop or sneak round security and then complained when they were shouted at by security or physically moved. As you needed to have a pass to be on the street in front of/with the parade, there were other photographers jumping the barriers and hiding in with the pack of press photographers and then were complaining when they were told to leave for not having a pass. I really don't envy the security and pride staff that were controlling this but I think they handled it fairly well.
Once we'd gone down Oxford Street and were most of the way down Regent street they allowed us to move back through the rest of the parade with an escort until the front of the Parade had moved on far enough. They did a good job of talking to the photographers and being really friendly.
So I made my way back through the parade shooting the people and crowds and I had such a good time. It was so nice to be in the middle of such a massive celebration and worthwhile one at that. It made me feel like I was doing something good.
There was also a massive crowd in Trafalgar Square for the acts, it was nice walking around and taking some crowd shots. I got some wide shots of large chunks of the crowd that I'm quite happy with.
I chose to shoot only a couple of the acts as I was starting to get pretty exhausted but it was the first time I shot a festival size stage. It's not easy getting shots over the top of the stage and monitors with the equipment and it's quite hard getting the angles too.
The light throughout the day was constantly changing and it wasn't the easiest thing I've shot. I was having to change my settings a lot and there were a lot of shadows which weren't always easy to shoot through. I kept checking to see how they were coming out and on camera a lot of them looked massively over or under exposed and I was a bit worried about having wasted an opportunity (especially as I wasn't using flash). I haven't worked out using flash in the day without blowing out all of the shots. I chose to stick with black and white for the day as I thought I could get some really strong shots. This might seem strange because of how colourful a day it was from all the costumes and flags but I'm glad I did.
I'm really happy with how the whole day went and how my shots came out. I got a lot more photos than I was expecting to. It was really just what I needed as I've been really low on confidence, frustrated and questioning a lot of what I'm doing and being there really helped.
It would be cool if you checked out the set of photos on Flickr as there's almost 100 on there.
Rest of the photos from pride are here.
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Mate, I think these are your best yet & you were definitely right sticking with b&w. Well done!
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