On Sunday, St. Louis had it's annual Pridefest parade and festival. I got some shots at the parade starting point before I about swooned in the heat and my camera battery croaked. And then the spare did, too. Someone told me you have to charge them once in a while. Damn.This was a lot of fun. The people were delightful. Now, on the one hand, I'm as straight as the shortest distance between two points. On the other hand, anything anybody else does or thinks is fine with me, as long as it doesn't hurt someone else; the state should stay the hell out of it.. I wondered how the marchers would react to a middle aged guy wearing a wedding band taking pictures of them. They were happy to let me carry on - notice the eye contact with the camera in these pictures. The neighborhood parade watchers were interesting, too. You could almost see the cartoon thought balloons hovering over their heads, saying, "What the....?"
Shooting at public celebrations is a treat. I go wandering around in old clothes, two DSLRs hanging from my neck, one of which sports a blatantly phallic telephoto lens. People assume I'm from the newspaper. It's a public event, this guy's obviously from the paper (wrong), so why not let him take my picture? Several people came up to me and asked me to photograph them. Couldn't ask for better.subjects.
The Pridefest parade was full of eye candy. I think I'll post some more of it.
TOMORROW: This photo has absolutely nothing to do with the borough of New York City where I grew up.
9 comments:
j'aime beaucoup la photo du milieu. quelle souplesse.
I like much the photograph of the medium. which flexibility.
I think your comments about your photos is excellent and made the picture even better.
Abraham Lincoln
Trapping the Japanese Beetle
Brookville Daily Photo
You must have a strong neck, to have TWO dSLRs, one with a huge lens, hanging from it! :-) But, that leads to the question of why you need two of them. So that you don't have to swap out the lens should you need a different zoom range?
Z - thanks for the note. I wrote the sentence that way for simplicity. Here's the deal: photography is my passion (although I have more passion than talent). Over the years, I've built up a good set of equipment. My main camera is a Canon 5D, which I generally use with a 24-105 mm zoom. Sometimes I also carry my older Canon 20D with a 100-400 mm telephoto. The 5D has a full size (i.e., 35 mm equivalent) light sensor so the size of the image with a 50 mm lens is the same as on a film camera. The 20D has a smaller light sensor, as do most DSLRs. The effective image size is 1.6 times the lens' focal length. That makes my telephoto work like a 160-640 mm lens. It give me a lot of range between the two.
I don't literally hang both from my neck - they would probably strangle me. One camera is usually in my hands and one slung over my shoulder. It looks impressive to the uninitiated.
you seem to have had a ball!! great pictures supplemented by a wonderful commentary!
Really entertaining commentary, and I LOVE those pole dancers! Mr Pride is a good looking sort, for sure!
Gay people do occasionally wear wedding rings, too. :) Nice pictures, tho, and I do like the eye contact, so point made as far as that goes.
Do you really think people were looking at your wedding band? I think they were just out there to show off who they are (with pride) so of course photos would be ok.
I couldn't agree more about your comments about acceptance. How well or badly is the Pridefest accepted in St Louis? Are there still a lot of people that it really upsets?
They were probably thinking you're:
(a) on the "low down"
(b) swing both ways
(c) at the wrong place, wrong time
(d) cool open-minded fellow
Correct answer: D
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