Walk With Pride
Capturing History
By Mikee dela Cruz
PUBLISHED: FEBRUARY 2010

	Share |

Shortly after attending the Taipei Pride March on October 31 (2009), photographer Charles Meacham and blogger/writer Sarah Baxter developed Walk with Pride (WWP), as a means of documenting Pride celebrations as they happen around the globe. 

“The project was developed after following the debates on gay right issues, and experiencing the energy of the Taipei Pride March. Gay rights, like all human rights, is a topic that we can both sincerely and enthusiastically support, so we wanted to do something to support the movement, and help people see it in this light.” CHARLES MEACHAM

“The project was developed after following the debates on gay right issues, and experiencing the energy of the Taipei Pride March,” Meacham says.

Meacham adds, with emphasis: “Gay rights, like all human rights, is a topic that we can both sincerely and enthusiastically support, so we wanted to do something to support the movement, and help people see it in this light.”

As some sort of travelling documentation, “the most basic challenge we face is geographical – how to effectively cover a range of parades during a limited time span, especially as many gay right marches are not only in the same month (June), but also on the same day, so as to commemorate the Stonewall Riots."

Thus, while the duo's original plan was to do the project within a year, "we decided to extend it to 14 months, so that we’ll be able to experience major pride events that occur on the same day,” Mecham says.

And then there’s the “challenge of deciding the best way to positively document each parade."

Meacham admits that "while we’d like to capture images that celebrate the festivity of the marches, we also hope to effectively balance this with written material supporting the main issues and stories behind each event and the communities involved.  Striking a successful balance so that viewers understand the deeper issues is important, but not always easy.”

	1 | 2