For about ten years I’ve thoroughly enjoyed photographing the Pride parade in the city of Malmö, Sweden because it is such a positive and life-affirming event. There is such a good vibe at the event and the diversity among people both visiting the parade event as well as participating is astounding. I can’t help being amazed at how different today’s situation is compared to when I was young, which is quite some time ago now.
With Covid putting a stop to both the 2020 as well as the 2021 editions of the parade this was the first time since the pandemic everyone could participate. That was why it was such a delight to go into town on July 9th to experience the event again.
I think that in all the exuberant joy on show in the parade (and during the week of Pride) it’s important to not forget that the reason the whole thing exists is the need to improve things, to not settle with the situation as it is…however much better things are now than before. It IS a protest as well as a display of joy after all! At least that’s how I interpret things as an ally - not that my perspective is very important in this case! There are far too many white, middle-aged men out there with opinions as it is!
When it comes to the Pride parade I am there for two main reasons - one is to show my complete support and the other is obviously to try and document the event as much as I can.
I may have gone slightly overboard on that last aspect though…when I came home from the parade I discovered to my “horror” that I had 452 exposures on the memory card. I had been shooting a lot of rapid fire sequences to try to get the best coverage of the many people walking past me, but over 450 images? That was waaaaay too many! With some ruthless editing I have been able to edit that down to just over 110 images and I am okay with that ratio. Out of those 110-ish images I have then selected the ones in this blog post to show you. I think they give a good glimpse of what I experienced that day.
The first gallery is from the Slottsparken area in Malmö where the thousands of participants gathered before the parade started their walk through the streets.
The second gallery below is obviously the Parade itself. While I took A LOT of pictures I still missed lots of the almost 8,000 participants (according to the organizers that many took part). I didn’t think there were quite as many colorfully dressed people (men in particular) as there has been in the past; I guess we’re all getting back into the swing of things after Covid…perhaps the 2023 edition will be quite the sparkly, technicolor event again? We’ll see!
