Pride | >Re-PHOTO

World Pride & Spanish Civil War

World Pride & Spanish Civil War. On Saturday 7th July 2012 there were two events taking place at the same time and I was determined to cover both. Fortunately having begun at the start of the WorldPride procession in Marylebone I was able to jump onto the Bakerloo Line to Waterloo and photograph the annual International Brigades Commemoration at Jubilee Gardens before returning on the same line to Charing Cross to photograph the end of the march.

WorldPride London – Portman St & Westminster

Pride almost didn’t happen in 2012 as the organisers were met shortly before the event to provide financial assurances to the GLA, Met Police, Westminster Council, London Fire Brigade and Transport for London, which they were unable to do. Quite why London Mayor Boris Johnson decided to try to stop Pride in this way is not at all clear.

*Two marchers in a group who had been at the first Gay Pride in 1972*

So rather than the planned event they decided to stage a ‘peaceful protest’ march or ‘procession’ specified as a democratic right under the Public Order Act 1986. This meant there were none of the corporate floats that have in recent years come to dominate the event, although company staff still marched in their company outfits.

Gay Pride had in recent years lost much of its political edge, becoming a carnival of different lifestyles and a commercially sponsored jamboree, with large and expensive floats. Without these, although the corporates were still present, everyone was on the street together and the whole event seemed more intimate.

WorldPride 2012 was again a protest – as it used to be, though in a very different situation from when it began when for many that took part it was where they ‘came out’, taking the significant step in affirming themselves as gay and standing together against the prejudices of a society which was only just beginning to accept that being gay was not a perversion.

Of course there are still some communities in the UK where being gay remains unacceptable, and as campaigner Peter Tatchell reminded us, there are still some countries where people are being killed because they are gay.

There were a number of heavy showers while people were arriving for the event, and many put off arriving as late as possible. Although at first it looked as if the event might be a washout, by the time I was making my way towards Baker Street station the street was tightly packed making my progress slow.

When I returned to photograph marchers at the end of the event in Whitehall and Pall Mall I had missed the front of the march, but there were still many arriving hours after the procession had begun.

Sacrifice For Spain Remembered – International Brigade Memorial

*David Loman unveils the new plaque in Jubilee Gardens*

The annual International Brigades Commemoration has been on the same day as Pride in several years, and recording both has often been a problem. I was particularly keen to be there this year as it could well be the last to be attended by any of those who volunteered to go to Spain.

The war in Spain began in 1936, 76 years earlier. A new plaque was being unveiled in Jubilee Gardens by David Loman who was an 18 year old Jewish lad, David Soloman, from the East End when he went to fight in Spain in 1936, changing his name to Loman (also know as Lomon) because it was illegal. He was captured by Italian soldiers in 1938, surviving some months in a prison camp before being repatriated. He served in the Royal Navy in the Second World War and like other surviving members of the International Brigades he was awarded Spanish nationality in 2007 for his services to the Spanish nation and presented with a Spanish passport in 2011.

Now 94, and looking very sprightly Loman is one of only three remaining British veterans – the others being Lou Kenton then 103 and Stanley Hilton. Both Loman and Kenton died during before the commemoration in 2013. Hilton, who was living in Australia, died in 2016 aged 98.

*David Loman holds the flag he was presented*

There were many family members of those who fought in Spain at the commemoration, and there were a number of speeches and performances by folk musician Ewan McLennan, performance poet Francesca Beard, singer-songwriter Paco Marin and folk duo Na-Mara, but Loman was definitely the star of the occasion.

More at Sacrifice For Spain Remembered.

Pride, Class War Protest and Paedophiles

Pride, Class War Protest and Paedophiles – Saturday 27th June 2015 in London. And a rather fine stencilled grafitti which I’ve not seen elsewhere – and I suspect was very quickly removed. Banksy couldn’t have done a better job, though I could perhasp have got the bottom of the image in my picture. And I would have preferred a red bus, though at least the blue one means the bus stop stands out better.

Pride Parade – Baker St

Pride in 2015 had a little more political edge than in recent years as this was the 30th anniversary of the support it gave to the miners strike and there were rather more trade union and other groups trying to reclaim the event as the radical festival it was until around the late 1990s.

My photographs from 2015 reflect this, and as usual I paid little attention to the large corporate groups who now provide sponsorship which enables them to dominate the parade and advertise their services to the crowds who line the route.

Despite this, as I wrote in 2015, ” It seems a long way from the event when I first photographed it in the early 90s when Pride was a protest.”

Pride is also a considerably over-photographed event, with people with cameras and yet more with mobile phones swarming over the area before the parade starts. I don’t object to this as photography is very much a democratic medium, but it would be nice if rather more of them were polite enough not to walk in front of me when I’m taking pictures.

I note in one of the captions, “I got the queen to pose for me with a friend. And found I now had collected another ten photographers at my shoulders“. This is one of the few events where I do occasionally ask people to pose. This is something I think has little or no place in photographing protests and documenting events, but at Pride many pose as soon as they see the camera pointed at them, so I feel OK to sometimes ask them to perform a little differently, perhaps with a different background, as in the picture above.

I didn’t stay as long as usual photographing people before the parade began as I wanted to go and meet Class War who were planning a little diversion.

Pride Para d e

Class War protest ‘corporate pinkwashing’ – Piccadilly Circus and Pall Mall

While many criticised the corporate takeover of Pride, and some had tried to oppose it by joining in the march as protesters, Class War had decided it was time for a more direct approach.

I met them outside a pub close to Piccadilly Circus and photographed them as they protested outside Barclay’s Bank at Piccadilly Circus against corporate sponsorship of Pride in London, briefly closing the branch as the parade approached. After this short protest which hardly attracted the attention of the police, they rolled up the banner and ran, following along the route and looking for opportunity to protest at the march itself.

On Pall Mall they found a place where the crowds were thinner and they could take over a section of the barriers along the road for the event. And as the flag bearers at the front of the parade came in sight they pushed those barriers aside and rushed out onto the street with their banner.

I rushed out with them and photographed them as for a minute or so they led the parade until Pride Marshals and police guided them back behind the barriers again.

They continued to protest with megaphone and banner for a few minutes as the parade arrived, but when they saw a squad of officers heading towards them they rolled up the banner and hastened away. I followed some down into the subway where they lost the police, coming out at another subway entrance. They began to discuss further interventions at the event, but I think probably went to a nearby pub after I said goodbye and left. Later I heard police had continued to follow some of the others for half an hour or so, but made no arrests.

Class War protest ‘corporate pinkwashing’

Victims & Survivors call for Justice – Downing St

It’s hard to assess some of the claims made by conspiracy theorists about paedophiles in high places and the activities of the family courts. Clearly the activities of people such as Jimmy Saville and Sir Cyril Richard Smith MBE MStJ DL have provided plenty of fire behind the clouds of smoke and many of those at this protest had very disturbing personal stories to tell.

So while many prominent claims have been found to be false, there also seem to be many cover-ups and failures to properly investigate; all too often the response by the authorities appears to be to close ranks, make false claims against the complainants and deny the realities.

Someone once said that around 30% of conspiracy theories turn out to be true. I’ve no idea whether this figure is accurate, but certainly it reflects the truth that some are. Its just very difficult to decide which.

While we can be confident that there are no chem trails (just atmospheric conditions that make normal combustion products visible), that Magna Carta doesn’t give us much in the way of freedoms now, that 9/11 actually happened and Trump lost the election some others are less certain. And while there are clearly not 76 paedophile MPs, there may well be a handful or so still lurking in the House of Commons, and certainly there have been some very questionable decisions made by family courts – or at least they would be very questionable if we were allowed to know about them.

Victims & Survivors call for Justice

Migrant Rights & Anti-Racist Pride 2016

Migrant Rights & Anti-Racist Pride 2016: Movement for Justice organised a Migrant Rights & Anti-Racist Pride march to the official Pride London procession and joined the main procession at the extreme end along with other protest groups who were relegated to the rear of the long parade.

Many feel the the official Pride event has been taken over by corporate sponsors such as Barclays and BAE systems and is a parade rather than a protest, no longer representing its roots and that the organisers deliberately marginalise any political groups.

At 12.15 they began their march on Oxford St, going along with others including London in Solidarity with Istanbul LGBTI Pride protesting the banning of Istanbul Pride, Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants.

They walked along to Regent Street, turning north and going up towards Portland Place were the main Pride march was gathering and I went with them, stopping to photograph others on the way.

As usual there were some rather strange costumes worn by some of those taking part, and I photographed some of these, but avoided the more corporate aspects of the event.

There were sections of the march that were still very recognisably protests, and some were marching with banners and placards which could have been on any protest against racism, homophobia and standing up for the rights of refugees.

Gay Muslims on the march with the messages ‘I exist for the expansion of your mind’ and’Halal Babe’.

Stonewall as ever where there to protest, with a range of red t-shirts, some with the message ‘Some People are BI’ or GAY or TRANS, but all ‘Get Over It!’

I took a lot of pictures as usual, and there are over a hundred on them on My London Diary, though the selection I made concentrates on those taking part in Pride as a protest, and perhaps misses some of the more outré images.

I didn’t bother to photograph the actual march but was still photographing the groups at the back who had not moved well over an hour before the parade began. By the time they got on the route many of the spectators will have given up watching and have left for drinks or food.

Pride London 2016
Migrant Rights & Anti-Racist Pride

Anti-Racist & Migrant Rights Reclaim Pride – 2017

I’ve almost given up on photographing the annual Pride Parade in central London, which has become such a corporate event, though as in this event in 2017 there are sometimes things happening around it which still have some political edge – and even inside it, generally relegated to well behind the corporate razzmatazz.

As I wrote on 8th July 2017:

“Pride over the years has degenerated from the original protest into a corporate glitterfest led by major corporations which use it as ‘pinkwashing’ to enhance their reputation and it includes groups such as the Home Office, arms companies and police whose activities harm gay people in the UK and across the world.”
My London Diary – July 2017

In 2017 the commercialisation of Pride had reached new heights, with participation limited to those groups who had officially applied and got pride armbands being allowed to join the procession. At least in part this seems to have been an attempt to exclude groups such as the Migrants Rights and Anti-Racist Bloc organised and led by Movement for Justice and including Lesbians & Gays Support The Migrants, No Pride in War and London Supports Istanbul Pride who had joined in towards the back of the 2016 parade.

I don’t know if the bloc had made an application, but I think probably not, and they certainly didn’t have the armbands. They marched between police vans that were blocking the entrance to Oxford Circus in front of the march with others lifting up barriers and tried to make their way past the front of the march to join in further back but were stopped by Pride stewards.

This left them immediately in front of the heavily stewarded front of the official parade, and they refused to move unless they were allowed to make their way into the parade. A stalemate ensued, with Pride stewards insisting that they had to leave the area, and the Migrants Rights and Anti-Racist Bloc refusing to shift. Police tried to get them to move and also tried to get the Pride stewards to let them into the march, but they remained adamant.

It was time for the parade to start, but it couldn’t. Eventually police sorted out the issue by holding back the official parade while the Migrants Rights and Anti-Racist Bloc marched along the parade route past the large crowds to a great deal of applause and some aggravation from Pride stewards along it.

Around a quarter of an hour later, the official parade started, following them along the route. But it was again held up as the front of the procession reached Whitehall, as some of the No Pride in War protesters lay down on the tarmac in front of it. The procession was held up for another 15 minutes as police tried to persuade them to leave – and eventually I think they all got up when finally threatened with arrest.

The Migrants Rights and Anti-Racist Bloc had made a stand and had reclaimed Pride as a protest – with a separate official Pride following behind – and the No Pride In War had also made their point against the inclusion of the military in the official event. But “curiously” for such a high-profile protest in an event covered by huge numbers of press from around the world I think it went totally unreported in the mainstream media. For them, Pride is just a colourful spectacle.

Anti-Racist & Migrant Rights reclaim Pride

Migrant Pride and Pride 2016

I first photographed London’s annual Pride in 1993, when it was a much smaller and more political event than it has become. Back then it was still a protest an since then it has become a parade, dominated by large corporate floats, from various large companies, armed forces and police.

Of course there is still some of the old spirit, with many groups from the gay community and even some protesters still taking part, but largely hidden at the back of the very long line-up.

The Migrant Rights & Anti-Racist Pride march to the official Pride London procession organised by Movement for Justice and joined by others, including London in Solidarity with Istanbul LGBTI Pride and Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants brought back some of the original spirit.

It gathered on Oxford St and then went on to join the main march, along with others behind the corporate floats.

The following year Pride organisers reacted by closing the march to only those who had officially applied to march and had official armbands – and refused entry to the Migrants Rights and Anti-Racist Bloc who then sat down in front of the march before police decided they could march along the route before the main procession.

This year Pride in London has been postponed until 11 September, but Peter Tatchell this May called for an alternative LGBT+ rights march to take place in June, He stated:

“For too long we have been conned by vested interests into believing that it is hugely expensive to hold a Pride march. It is not costly at all if we run the no-frills march that I am proposing.
“It would mirror the informality and spontaneity of the first Pride march in 1972, which I and 40 others helped organise. All we need to do is publicise it and people will turn up.
“Pride in London has become depoliticised. This Pride can change that. As well as being a joyful celebration, it should also profile LGBT+ human rights issues, such as the government stalling on a conversion therapy ban, blocking reform of the Gender Recognition Act and failing to end the detention of LGBT+ asylum seekers.
“It’s time to get back to the original roots of Pride, with everyone encouraged to bring a placard highlighting the LGBT+ issues that concern them. Let’s make this an event where our on-going demands for LGBT+ rights can be seen and heard.
https://www.petertatchellfoundation.org/call-for-alternative-reclaim-pride-london-march-in-late-june/

So far as I’m aware it has not been possible to organise an event like this for June 2010, although the London Trans Pride is still billed to take place on June 26, beginning at 2pm at Hyde Park. Perhaps next year it will be possible to organise such a “no frills” march with “no floats, no stage and no speakers at the end. Totally open, egalitarian and grassroots.” which “would reclaim Pride for the community.”

Pride London 2016
Migrant Rights & Anti-Racist Pride

Pride should be a Protest

After around 20 years of photographing the annual Pride in London I decided I had had enough. As I’ve written often before, Pride has moved from being a protest for gay rights to becoming a corporate jolly, and this year charging entry fees that have prevented many of the more radical groups from taking part officially.

So this year I didn’t bother to apply for accreditation to cover Pride, something which has become more or less essential in recent years. And later I heard that Pride had tried to refuse accreditation to many press photographers as well as more or less banning those they did accredit from where they would be able to make decent pictures. After a great deal of aggravation and complaints from the NUJ and BPPA there were some compromises, but many colleagues decided to have a day off this year.

Two years ago instead of covering the official march I’d gone with the Migrants Rights and Anti-Racist Bloc who had tried to join in the event and when they were refused had held up Pride and then marched along the route ahead of the official event. And last year I’d gone into the suburbs while Pride was taking place for a march celebrating the 70th anniversary of the NHS and against plans to close acute facilities at Epsom and St Helier Hospitals in south London.

For 2019 I decided that there were two events I wanted to cover, one completely unrelated to Pride, but the other the Queer Liberation March in protest against the increasing corporate nature of Pride which was planning to march at the end of the official parade.

This was meeting in Regent’s Park, where some of those taking part in the official event were also gathering, and at first it was difficult to tell the two groups apart. Gradually as some left to take up their place in Pride things became clearer, and it also became clear that I was in for a very long wait before anything was going to happen as Pride was moving only very slowly.

I’m not good at waiting, and decided to go and join the unrelated event, intending to return later. My journey took me much longer than expected because of the crowds for Pride, and by the time I had finished photographic the second event I was feeling tired and could not be bothered to return to find the group from Regent’s Park.

It was a poor decision, as the Queer Liberation March turned out to be rather interesting. Pride stewards tried to stop them marching along the parade route and there were scuffles with stewards and police, before police decided that they must be allowed to continue. My colleague who had stayed and waited with them got some really interesting pictures and I had missed the fun.

More at Pride is a Protest

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

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Stonewall 50

At 1:20 a.m. on Saturday, June 28, 1969, police began a raid on the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, New York, a Mafia owned pub according to Wikipedia “known to be popular among the poorest and most marginalized people in the gay community: drag queens, transgender people, effeminate young men, butch lesbians, male prostitutes, and homeless youth.”

Police raids on gay locations were not uncommon, but usually the police who took money from bar owners and tipped them off in advance of the raids, but this hadn’t happened at Stonewall that night, probably because the police felt they weren’t getting enough payback.

In the raid, police separated all those dressed as women and as usual in such raids tried to get them to go into the toilet with a woman officer to be examined – and, if they had male genitals, arrested. But people refused, and men refused to show police their ID.

You can read a lengthy account of how the events developed in the Wikipedia article. The riots that arose from the raid, largely started by lesbians and transgender people who stood up to the police continued the following day and are generally accepted to have begun the gay liberation movement not just in the United States but elswhere across the world.

The annual Pride celebration in London is now largely a corporate event, a parade rather than a march, and although this year it was said to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, to many it hardly seemed to do so in an appropriate fashion. But there are other Pride celebrations around London that now seem more authentic, and the Forest Gayte Pride festival had the advantage of taking place on the actual 50th anniversary of Stonewall, with events on the 28th and 29th June.

I arrived a few minutes late for the start of the Pride march in Forest Gate, which appeared to have started a little earlier than the time I had been given, but managed to photograph its final few hundred yards and the speeches in the Pride Market at its conclusion. Unlike the huge event in central London, this was very much a community event, and far more interesting for that.

Among those who took part in the march and spoke was the local mayor Rokhsana Fiaz. She replaced the former mayor of Newham, Robin Wales, who had been mayor since the post was established in 2002 but was deselected in 2018 after a challenge to questionable voting procedures by affiliates which would have kept him in power despite the votes of local party members.

More at Forest Gayte Pride celebrates Stonewall 50

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

Controlling the Image

Two stories I’ve read in the past couple of weeks have illustrated an increasing attempt by organisers of events to control the way they are photographed. It’s something that has happened over many years in some limited areas of photography, particularly around the film and music industries, but which seems now to be widening as PR people become more and more involved.

I’ve only rarely worked in areas where accreditation is vital, and have hardly ever needed to get permission before distributing or publishing images. Occasionally when taking portraits I’ve shown pictures of people to them before sending them off, but generally only as a courtesy; fortunately I’ve never had anyone object to my choices. But then I usually try to show people at their best, and generally delete pictures that show people in an unfairly negative light rather than use them. It’s a decision that has almost certainly cost me considerably with pictures of some politicians.

There have been one or two cases where long after an image has been published on a web site I’ve been asked if I would remove it. Unless there is a legal imperative or a very good reason – for example that it might endanger someone’s safety or even life by enabling a violent offender to trace them – I ignore such requests. Being unflattering isn’t grounds for censorship.

Often I’ve photographed aspects of events which the organisers would prefer were not shown, but I’ve not faced the kind of problems which Manchester-based photographer Joel Goodman describes in his blog post about his experiences in photographing Manchester Pride. Of course people have deliberately got in my way (police and security staff are skilled in this) but I’ve not been threatened with removal and ejection from events, though rather too often with arrest.

One of Goodman’s main complaints is about a PR person who tried to prevent him from taking pictures when “a lesbian gender ideology protest attempted to hijack the front of the parade“. Later the same woman came up to him at a candlelit vigil and told him he had to leave, because of his coverage of the earlier incident and also his photograph of Ariana Grande, taken from a public place after he and other photographers had been banned from photographing the event – for which the singer’s team provided a single image for media use.

Goodman, who I’ve met covering various events in London and whose photographic work is admirable, makes his points about this clearly, stating his legal rights as well as making clear what he feels is his job as a journalist, and his feelings as a gay, HIV+ man in being told by Pride’s PR team he was not “on our side” and would be refused accreditation for Pride in future years.

Clearly Pride’s attitude is totally unacceptable and as Goodman says, it “exposes the ever present danger of the sort of expectations PR operatives have of journalists, in exchange for access.”

At the bottom of the post are links to his photographs of the events, and as you can verify they show a totally professional approach.

The second article I read was by photographer Peter Dench in the Amateur Photographer, in a post I don’t care if my documentary shots are ‘unflattering’ about covering several sporting events. On a press trip to a prestigious horse-racing event for The Sunday Times Magazine he met two people who described themselves as ‘journalists and influencers and vloggers’ who he says seemed ‘to have spent most of their day in the hospitality box making saccharine social media posts of the sponsor’s products.’ I’m sure they were the PR’s delight.

At another sporting event he was asked when leaving by the PR to show the photographs he had taken in the VIP marquee. Dent writes: “‘I can’t do that,’ I said. ‘I haven’t seen them yet and after I’ve seen them, the client will be the next to see them, then I can let you have a look’ ” He was then informed that a photographer ‘the previous year had taken a less-than-flattering photograph of a minor royal and was now excluded from all of their events.‘

Dench goes on to mention other cases of photographers being warned not to take ‘unflattering’ pictures or have accreditation refused. He concludes with the sentence ‘Photographers shouldn’t stop taking truthful photographs of what they witness. They may not be seen immediately but one day, I hope, they will form an important archive of our time.’