Last December we had a Homecoming Parade in our town for the Regiment based here. Although I hadn't planned to use these photos for this project, when I was looking through them recently I thought they would work well.
At the time I simply wanted to record the event - my younger son was there with his year group from school, but my older son was at school and my husband was working overseas. I thought it would be nice for them to see the parade in photos. I also wanted to try and get a photo which captured the youth of the soldiers and the job they were there to do. I think the last photo in the sequence captures that.
In this image the two soldiers have taken up position by the dais where the salute will be taken. The crowds have been gathering all morning in the cold weather, showing how important the parade is.
In this image the schoolchildren have been given flags to wave. I like the colours and the expectancy in the image caused by the majority of the crowd looking in the same direction (and out of shot).
One of the soldiers looking anxiously in the direction of the parade. Parades like this take a huge amount of organisation.
The police outriders arrive signalling the start of the parade.
I was happy with my position in the crowd here. I had arrived early to get a place at the front, and I was near the dais so that I would see the salute being taken. Because of the crowds, there was no chance of changing position anyway !
The start of the parade. I tried various crops on this image as I felt initially that there was too much space around the main subject. But I felt that none of the crops worked as the image needed the impact of the crowd and the buildings to put the event in the correct context (homecoming parade). It also needed the Regimental Colours to be included in the image.
Taking the salute. I zoomed in a bit to make sure that the importance of this moment wasn't lost with too much loose background. Also the Regimental Colours are in this image - I'm pleased with this one as a record of the parade.
Now I began to try and get photos of the men and women as they marched by.
I cropped this one to draw attention to the faces and expressions of the men. Many of them were quoted afterwards as saying that they weren't able to look at the crowds or they would get too emotional.
Similar to the photo above it, and again cropped for impact.
Similar to the previous two photos, but I zoomed out a bit to include some of the surrounding buildings for context purposes. But I think the image has less of an impact as a result. Personally I much prefer the cropped close-ups for this.
The Band of the Paras marched in with the parade. I like the detail of the Para badge on the music stands in this one. With their heavy coats and gloves it reinforces how cold it was that day.
Again in this one I have included more of the surrounding buildings and also the dais is visible behind the soldiers who are saluting. I wanted to include the people who were waving from the windows.
Very similar to the previous image - I included it as I like the arm on the edge of the image. Normally I would have cropped this out, but I wanted to leave it in as it gives an idea of the support of the crowd for our soldiers.
Remember what I said about not looking at the crowds.....
Of all the photos of the soldiers marching through the town I think this one give the best impression of how young most of them are. I also like how the image continues out of both sides of the frame.
This gives an idea of some of the work that the soldiers do, and it is blatantly clear just how dangerous it is from the armoured vehicles they are driving and body armour they are wearing.
This is the picture which for me captures the idea of how young our soldiers are and the danger of the job they are trained to do. I zoomed in on his face and upper body for impact, and I like the way that the crowds behind him are visible but not in focus.
Although I did not shoot these photographs with this project in mind, by looking through the images and thinking about the day when I took them, I realise that my thought process would have been the same if I was shooting specifically for the project, I knew that I wanted to record the morning's events and take photos which conveyed the atmosphere of the day. It was also an aim that I tried to capture something which showed how young the soldiers are. Finally I wanted an image which showed the youth of the soldiers and the dangers of the job they are doing. To do this I chose a good viewpoint (I knew I wouldn't be able to move once the crowds had built up), and I shot a mixture of close-up and wider angle images. I had to make sure that the lens I had on the camera was capapble of covering the focal lengths I needed.
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