Out to Space

69 shots of where people set there bottoms down at Fair Day of Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras 2008 Festival.

While New Mardi Gras is releasing their official images of Mardi Gras Slide Show, I have my own angle of the events. It is obvious what fascinates my eyes at Fair Day. The colourful stuff they bring along on the day reflects the diversity of the community.

69 Blankets slideshow features Magic Games by Jacques Renault, released by RCRD LBL under a Creative Common BY-NC license.

The official Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras has to wrap up with the party. This is a big dose for an excessive life of modern world.

This is it, another year of Mardi Gras. This year it celebrates 30th anniversary. On the second time I am involved as a photographer, it intrigues my thoughts in many ways. I will sum up what I have experienced the festival later.

The peak of the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival for the public is definitely the parade. The vibe starts to kick in when people come in early to Oxford Street in order to get the best spots to see the floats. Once the roads are closed for the march, more and more audiences pile up outside the barricades whereas the show are being prepared inside. The lucky ones who reside on the buildings along the streets can watch the glamour from above while the crowd further away from the actual parade gets wilder and wilder as the night goes along. The community has successfully thrown another party to the city which seems to be hungry for decadence.

A rainbow flag of a boat flying with Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House in the background.

Another major event of Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival and the last key party before the final Mardi Gras Dance Party rolls in, Mardi Gras Harbour Party, Sol Y Luna.

The simple concept is just having fun while watching sunset in Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens with Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House in the background. Moreover, it is special this year when two cruise liners, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth 2, rendezvous. And this is the last time that QE2 cruises in the Harbour before her retirement.

George Bush impersonation at Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade 2007

It is my little dream comes true to have my works exhibited at Australian Centre for Photography even though it is just a part of the slide show of Mardi Gras: the Slide Show last year. Quote from the press release:

Last Mardi Gras season, a group of budding photographers drawn from Sydney College of the Arts and the Sydney Photobloggers group (who reside at flickr.com) were brought together by Robert McGrath of MG Photographic with the aim of capturing the originality and exuberance of Sydney’s Mardi Gras season.

Morgan Carpenter says that my photos have changed over the year. It is essential to explore retrospectively on your own works to see how it has shaped in a period of time. This small exhibition gives me a chance to look back at myself and I start having a flashback.

Late 2006 I suffered from a drawback feeling. Things went not too well on the year for all sorts of reasons. And I found that that my photography was stale, especially in the contents. So I decided to have a theme to focus on. The idea was to capture Sydney’s diversity through its community events and celebrations.

I was looking at Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras to kick off the concept. Fortunately, Mardi Gras: the Slide Show was looking for a handful of photographers via Sydney Photobloggers Group for the project. My Fair Day series impressed the producer, Robert McGrath and got me in.

Best of all, this art project gave the photographers their own space to express the creativities. The event pushed my limits technically and creatively as I tried to approach it different ways from what I saw Mardi Gras photographs and from my own comfort zone. The day after I was still exhausted mentally and physically. The award from the project was just an extra, the experience that I could share to the larger audience and got me this far was the real deal.

Damien Eames, Head of Brand and Creative Strategy at Mardi Gras says.

For the first time I feel we have a body of work that can convey the complex magic of Mardi Gras to those who’ve never experienced it directly.

The Slide Show is presented at Video Lounge, Australian Centre for Photography until 8 March.