(This post got published way much later than I planned because of travels and other work in between.)
June is the official Pride month around the globe. I support the LGTBQ+ community. I think everyone deserve the same human rights and to love whoever they want no matter which gender, sexual orientation, religion and ethnicity they have. Pride is a very important event and it's a protest until everyone is free. This year I wanted to make sure to photograph West Pride which is held in Gothenburg every year. By doing a coverage of the festival I want to shed a light on some creatives within the LGTBQ+ community that were on set of West Pride. My platforms might not be super big at the moment but I hope by sharing my photographs from West Pride, will make people find new creative work and new artists.
Photographing at Pride events is always more senstive than usual. I need to have another approach when capturing people because there are many people within the LGBTQ+ community that have hidden indentities. There can also be people who doesn't want their pictures taken in this enviroment because of their own safety. Because of this reason, I don't have that many photos of the festival area since I didn't want to overstep the boundaries.
One of the main events that I was looking forward to seeing and photographing during West Pride were the different dragshows! For quite some times, I have wanted to start photographing drag queens because I love the artform and I get so much more to capture. For example, over the top outfits, lots of colour and tons of fierce personality!
I was absolutely loving to photograph the Drag shows. I was forced to create a new mind set to photograph the drag queens. I had to be alert all the time, as their sets had mixtapes and could include outfits changes, theatric performance and change in props and movement within only a couple minutes. I loved the challenge and it was so much fun getting to capture a lot of new personalities!
Gunn Lundemo is a DJ, party maker and stage producer. She have been working closely at West Pride this year and not only as the roles that I mentioned but also as a bartender in the official bar/resturant in the festival area. Gunn is such a hardworking person and I respect her and her work ethic. I've met Gunn a lot of times this past year through Jasmine Kara. Things are always so hectic when we meet but it has been fun seeing her around and getting to know her a bit.
If you ever get the opportunity to meet Gunn, you should defintely take it! It's hard to explain but I really like her vibe! It's super chill and cool. She's the calm herself and doesn't feel intense at all which is unsual but very nice.
A Pride Festival is nothing without a Pride Parade. It's always fun seeing all the colorful people walking the parade and all of the pride flags.
Pride isn't only about party and art. Around the festival area there were different people having workshops within art, help on how to apply for work and what to do if people treat someone injustice because of their gender/sexual orientation. There were also lectures and talks about mental health. Some political parties were also on set to show their appearence and talk about what they stand for.
There were also people selling items and handmade crafts to collect money for charity helping the LGBTQ+ community not only in Sweden but around the world as well.
The place I spent most time at during the Festival was at the main stage. Most of the performing acts were artists which I had never heard about. It was so much fun seeing new creatives and get introduced to new music.
LL-Pride (Lady Lovers) is showgroup. I really enjoyed watching their set. They were performing covers which they sang live and showed their own choregraphed dance routines to these songs. In the middle of the set, they also had a pre-recorded monologue where they also made a routine to. It was about how it can be to grow up as a LGBTQ+ person and how they are excluded from the society. I really liked this part and they had picked songs which fit their message in what they want with their art.
RHYS was the one act which I had heard before. Rhys music sound is a bit more mellow than most other performing acts which I saw during the festival. She perfomed some of her known songs such as "Last Dance" and "Too Good To Be True".
I had never heard about JOY before doing my research of who was going to perform at the festival. I decided to see her set as I liked the uptempo beat in her music. I'm really glad that I went to attend Joy's set because she was such a good live act and it was a lot of fun to photograph her! Her facial expression was over the top and her energy was lit! I will make a own post of her set since I several good photos of her and want to dive into her music a bit more. So stay tuned for that post!
It was a lot more of work into capturing the festival than I first expected. There were tons of more items on the agenda around the whole city than I first knew. If I had more time I would have tried to see more of the festival than the main stage. But consider I had work during the day I was physical not capable to see everything but I did my best to being able to show you as much variety as I could of the festival.
I even made sure to attend the afterparty at The Concept despite not being a party person who likes going to the club. The official afterparty with Gunn Lundemo didn't only include a DJ set but also performing artists such as Crash, Imaa Queen and Mariette. I liked that they had a drag queen in the mix of performing artists, it put something more to the lineup.
That was it for this time. I really enjoyed attending West Pride and get to meet familiar faces but also a lot of new people! If the timing is right and I'm able to, I will definitely check out the festival next year as well! There will be coming more posts from West Pride within the next couple of weeks. They will be covering Drag Idol, JOY's set and Drag & Burlesquegala, so stay tuned for those!
Until next time, ingat!
/Lizel
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