File: 2022004-0276
Lower Castle Street, Bristol, South West of England, United Kingdom, on Saturday 9th of July 2022.
About those photographs.
The 2022 Bristol Pride started at Castle Park, moved into Castle Street, and turned left into Lower Castle Street, heading north towards Penn Street. Those photographs were taken somewhere near the NCP Broadmead car park next to the Marriott hotel. It was approximately about 15 minutes after the start of the march.
I took up a position near the car park’s entrance. In the wide photo (0251), you’ll notice the KEEP CLEAR wording painted on the road, and the lowered kerb (in American-English: “crub”), that is where the entrance to the car park is.
This was where I spotted the guy with baseball cap, sunglasses, and a rainbow mask around his face, holding up a placard. I had noticed that thousands of people on the march had showed their faces, only a very rare number would choose to hide their faces.
In the second photo (0263), I zoomed to the 200mm length and took some shots of the guy. I have no idea who he is, when preparing the photos for uploading to Flickr, I simply called him “The Masked Man.”
It had occurred to me that I had taken zoomed in photos of him for uploading to Flickr or Instagram or whatever, to showcase my experience and skills, and considering that he wants his identify hidden, he may want his privacy.
So I went over to him, to ask him for his permissions. Here is where it gets interesting…
Bearing in mind that I am a deaf person with speech impaired, often mispronouncing my words, and that he is wearing a mask over his mouth, making lip-reading impossible for me.
So how do we communicate with each other? No problem! The simple fact is…
Days before coming down to Bristol to cover this event, I had prepared some kind of ID tag of my own, stating that I’m a photographer and that I’m deaf. On the other side was a simple typed text, that simply asked “May I have permissions to publish the photos online? I ask out of respect because you are clearly seen in the photographs.”
On this day, at that point, I went up to him, and I said to him “Excuse me, I’m deaf.” Then I held up the back of my ID tag, let him read the wording.
Even thought he’s wearing a mask around his mouth, so if he were to say something like “Sure, go ahead.” It would be impossible to know, but no problem there. As he knows I’m a deaf person, all he did was simply nod his head.
When I was in my last year at a deaf school, I told the hearing teacher that I wanted to get into college and study photography. I was told that I can’t become a photographer because I’m deaf and how am I supposed to communicate. Even my mother agrees with the teacher and wasn’t supportive of my aims.
It’s not like I wanted to become a wedding photographer, which would need a lot of communications between the photographer and the wedding party.
My mother, her friends, the teachers, and most other people, were all wrong. Even thought it is difficult for me as a photographer to do this kind of photography, it should be seen as a challenge to overcome, not a barrier.
So, I got his permissions to publish the photos, and there it is.
About the event.
Bristol Pride is an annual festival held over couple of weeks, promoting equality for the various LGBT+ people, with a march through the city at a weekend.
The Bristol Pride started life in 1977 as a fundraiser for the local LGBT community, and evolved into an annual event held every year. There was a gap of only some years between 1994 to 2010 when it was restarted.
The 2022 march started at Castle Park, near Castle Street. The route took them past Cabot Circus, and went around the major shopping area by using The Horsefair and Union Street, and as they went down Union Street, they headed towards Castle Park. When they reached Castle Park, they turned into Wine Street, went into High Street, and into Baldwin Street, headed towards the A38 which is Anchor Road. This route took them into Canon’s Road, and ended up near the Bristol Aquarium.
The march was said to take about an hour, but as a photographer whom would go back and forth, up and down the line, looking for good shots, it took me at least a couple of hours to complete the route.
After the march, those whom bought tickets, can attend an evening musical festival at The Downs, approximately to the north-west of city centre. I did not attend this event, and by the time I got back to my friend’s home, I was worn out from the heat.
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