This must be my third year celebrating Pride in Amsterdam if I’m not mistaken, it might be the fourth, but certainly not the fifth. Anyhow, Pride is one of my favourite days in this city. This year I set out to document it using film, loaded in a Lomo camera. Not my usual set-up, but a unique one to document a moment of celebration of love and diversity.
As I stood along the canals with a fixed lens, minimal controls and a limited number of shots to be taken, the city started to come alive and turn colourful. Not only with flags, but with people embracing their true selves. The group wearing construction overalls and hard hats, people covered by flags, painted faces with rainbows, glitter, cowboy hats. You name it.
The full day was a celebration, from the first notes of music to the anthems of the likes of Mamma Mia and Born This Way. Amsterdam, a city that breathes diversity with residents coming from more than 180 nationalities, was celebrating.
This year was special. Amsterdam hosted WorldPride for the first time, combined with EuroPride. The city also celebrated the 30th anniversary of Pride Amsterdam, and The Netherlands the 25th anniversary of same-sex marriage in the country. The first country in the world to legalise it.
The Canal Parade is unique, with boats passing through the UNESCO-listed 17th-century canal ring offering the perfect backdrop to floating parties. People waving, dancing, singing, and enjoying. In the end, there were 80 boats in the water and more than half a million people attending the celebration. Each and every one of us different but united in a single cause: celebrating love, and showing that it is ok to be you, to dance, to kiss, to love whomever you want.
The parade not only celebrates, it also confronts and brings awareness to different issues: the urgent need for more education, homelessness among the LGBTQI+ population, corporations doing some pride-washing, among others. It is also a reminder of the steps we need to keep taking to build a more inclusive world.
As the day went by it was common to see groups of people walking the city, chatting with strangers, dancing to different tunes coming from the canals and houses. The atmosphere, charged with an electric feeling of acceptance, hope, and love. A reminder to all of us to embrace and celebrate diversity. To keep loving and enjoying life. Two rolls of film later, the party kept going, the rolls undeveloped, uncertain of what I captured and if any of the photos are good. The magic of film, and shooting with constraints.
