A short set a photographs from the Barcelona Pride march, 2015.

The march felt smaller in scale than previous years. In part this is because the march seems strongly diluted by non-LGBT politics. I think that there were more Catalan Independence flags than rainbow flags, driven in part by a large presence from groups such as the Assemblea Nacional Catalana and ERC. There were also people promoting Animal Rights that seemed only tangentially connected to the original motivations for these marches.

And perhaps that is a good thing, as it reflects the immense progress towards true equality that have been gained over the last twenty years. Even the rabid right-wingers of the PP have been forced to pull back attempts to annul the gay-marriage laws here – largely because of the voter backlash this would now cause.

Sadly, not all Mediterranean countries are as open as Spain. Italy still saw large actions to legalise gay marriage, and Istanbul saw a last minute ban against its pride march on religious grounds, with violent suppression by the police. Pride marches are still an important ongoing part of the battle for equality and freedom.

All the images in this set were taken by Marco and myself with either the Olympus E-M5 (45mm) or the Ricoh. We took the Olympus because the crushing heat pretty much ruled out anything bigger, but this was probably a mistake given the immense difficulty of trying to get the AF to lock reliably on moving targets. The Olympus is also several years old and starting to fail – periodically resetting  and loosing the time and image settings.

One of the most impressive but least observed parts of the march is the clean-up that follows the parade. One moment the street is covered in confetti and candies, and then it is back as if nothing had happened. Quite amazing to watch.