honeymoon | >Re-PHOTO

EDL No Show & Pride Celebrates Love and Marriage: I began my day with Unite Against Fascism activists who met at Speakers Corner to opposed a march by the EDL, but they didn’t turn up. After taking a few pictures as the UAF celebrated news of the arrests of the EDL leaders as they defied the Tower Hamlets ban I walked to where Pride was gathering in Baker Street.

UAF Oppose, EDL Don’t Come

EDL No Show & Pride Celebrates Love and Marriage - 2013 — *The only EDL present were English Disco Lovers*

On Saturday 29th June 2013 the English Defence League had been banned by police from entering Tower Hamlets and protesting by walking past the East London Mosque as well as from any assembly or procession in Woolwich. Instead they were allowed to march from Hyde Park to Parliament and UAF had been given permission to march in protest in the same area against them.

There were only 50 to 100 UAF supporters at Speakers Corner when I arrived, perhaps because it had become clear that the EDL seemed unlikely to accept the police compromise. While I was there the news came through that the EDL leaders Stephen Lennon (‘Tommy Robinson’) and Kevin Carroll had been arrested in Whitechapel as they tried to ignore the ban and was greeted with loud cheering.

I left shortly after to go to Pride.

More at UAF Oppose, EDL Don’t Come.

Pride Celebrates Love and Marriage – Baker St – Trafalgar Square

Pride 2013 celebrated the passage of the 2013 Marriage bill then going through the UK parliament – it became law as the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 the following month, though only came into force in March 2014. A similar Act in Scotland came into force later in 2014, but couples in Northern Ireland had to wait another six years.

As I commented, “Pride has for years become a celebration of gay lifestyle, with a large participation by corporates who profit from this, but at least this year the overall theme was related to a political event.”

I tried in my coverage of the parade to cover as many as I could of those taking part who were clearly celebrating that theme, as well as many of the other individuals and groups who provide the incredible diversity and colour of the event.

*‘The Queen’ put in her usual appearance*

The parade was forming up on Baker Street and I arrived there a couple of hours before they all moved off, and most of my pictures were taken there, but I later went on to Trafalgar Sqaure, leaving when the end of the parade reached there. Here are just a few of the pictures I made – you can see many more on My London Diary.

*‘Trans* people are being Criminalised while you Party’*

*Stonewall: ‘Some Girls Marry Girls. Get Over It.*

There are many, many more pictures of people in the parade on My London Diary at Pride Celebrates Love and Marriage.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

Charles Custer had been employed as a street photographer as a high school student, and after he met his future wife Irene when studying at the University of Chicago decided he could make some money so they could get married by working as a roving photographer. Irene told him she would go with him and the couple got married and began an extended honeymoon travelling along Route 66 in 1950-51, stopping off at small towns along the way to make and sell photographs to shop owners and others.

Apparently, according to the Chicago Sun –Times story, they walked into businesses and announced themselves with the message “Hollywood’s Calling!” and Irene then posed the staff for a portrait while Charles set up his Agfa camera and took the photograph.

The camera he used was an Agfa Ansco view camera and the pictures were I think taken on 5″x7″ sheet film. Probably they used an orthochromatic film to make it easier to develop by inspection in motel rooms crudely blacked out using blankets, drying the negatives and making contact prints to supply to their clients the following day.

The lens used had a surprisingly wide angle of view, essential for photographing the workplace interiors, and which gives what the CST writer describes as “one point perspective” but is simply what we always get with a wide-angle lens, accentuated by the generally frontal viewpoint. Almost all show some vignetting at the corners, suggesting that the lens used was one designed for a smaller format where its angle of view would have been less.

The Back to the Past page gives similar information about the photographs but includes many more of the roughly 150 that survived and were recently rediscovered and reprinted by Oscar Larrauri Elías and Khela de Freslon — of OK More Photography who discovered the box of old Kodak negatives when visiting their friend Charley Custer, whose father Charles died this January. They are hoping that putting them on line will get people to come forward with information about the people and places shown in the pictures taken around 70 years ago.

Thanks to my friend Derek Ridgers (a photographer whose work you shouldn’t miss) for posting a link to the Chicago Sun Times article on Facebook.

Tag: honeymoon

EDL No Show & Pride Celebrates Love and Marriage – 2013

UAF Oppose, EDL Don’t Come

Pride Celebrates Love and Marriage – Baker St – Trafalgar Square

Route 66