Pride Day 1993

 500 weeks #037

June is Pride Month, so I thought I would feature these photos from the 1993 Pride Parade in Toronto. At that time I was writing and photographing “EyeSpy”, a weekly social column that ran in “Eye Weekly”, an alternative newspaper. The column ran for about three years, and this was the first Pride parade I covered for the media.

The mainstream media would typically cover the parade route and the floats, so I decided to stick to Church Street and feature the participants. What I wrote and ran in the paper in 1993 was:

COME OUT AND PLAY: The annual Lesbian & Gay Pride Week took to the streets of Toronto with a parade and a day-long fair Sunday attended by more than 80,000 people. For the first time the Metro Police recognized it as a “community event” and provided their services for free – and wasn’t (PIC 1) Officer 50362, seen here getting a warm welcome from Jamal, glad. As seen on a button, “Don’t feed or tease the straight people.” Anyway, among the crowd were (PIC 2, l-r) co-owner of the Queen’s Bedroom Jane Ford, seen hanging around with actor / writer Diane Flacks, and (PIC 3, l-r) Jamie, Smurf and Randy from Vancouver. Also out were (PIC 4) some of the members of Fruit Cocktail, who were promoting their variety show, Among the participants in the parade were (PIC 5, l-r) Mistress Bitch and Maitresse Noir, riding along in the Northbound Leather/Urban Primitive rickshaw. And remember, if you can’t be gay, be happy!

I would work with the art director – Kevan Buss – to choose the finals images. I took a lot more photos than could fit in a single column, so the extras are presented here for the first time. BTW: I can’t locate the notes from the event, so if anyone know the names for the rest of the participants, please fell free to let me know and I will update the column.

 

Technical stuff: Nikon FM2 camera with a Nikon E-Series 28mm f/2.8 lens using Fujifilm Super G 400 colour negative film.