Petter Hegre:
Let Freedom Ring!

PHOTOGRAPHY | PETTER HEGRE       WORDS | KIRK BROMLEY

It is truly a vision that, once seen, is never forgotten. On par with the bacchanals of Ancient Greece or the medieval festivals of Europe, the Gay Pride Parade is one of the wildest and most liberating communal spectacles the modern world has to offer. Every Gay Pride Parade features thousands upon thousands of “out” homosexuals and their supporters parading down the street in all kinds of dress, semi-dress, and non-dress, along with their various vehicles, posters, and paraphernalia, performing what has come to be a thrilling combination of political expression, guerilla theater, and personal ecstasy.

To those “in the know,” the Gay Pride Parade is simply called Pride. And it takes place in cities all over the world, generally in the summer. San Francisco, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Paris, New York, Toronto, Bangkok, Milan, Manchester, and the list goes on and on. By official estimates there are over 200 Prides every year, though undoubtedly these are only the major ones, and smaller ones go on in less publicized places. For instance, in 2004, there were 23 cities in Brazil alone that announced a Pride event.

Pride is more than just a parade, though that is usually the central and most attended event. Depending on the city, Pride can include dance parties, seminars, political action meetings, barbecues, beauty contests, and more. All Pride events are organized by local charities or volunteer organizations and are centered on the task of bringing increased awareness to and acceptance of homosexual individuals and culture.

The first Pride took place in 1969 and it was known as the March on Stonewall. True to the core spirit of Pride, this march started as a protest against discrimination and violence against gays in New York City. Since then, Pride has mushroomed into a much broader and more colorful event. Many gays and lesbians dress in bright colors, head-to-toe leather or feathers or sometimes next to nothing. The goal is not only to express solidarity, but to showcase the vivid personalities that fill the diverse gay communities throughout the world.

But for all the fun, Pride has as its basic mission the bringing together of gay people and their supporters in order to express the view that there’s nothing wrong with being gay. In today’s political climate, where governments, religions, organizations and individuals continue to express homophobic opinions, edicts and laws, Pride is an important statement of civic freedom, human rights, and personal liberty. As one often hears being chanted down the street at Pride, “We’re here, we’re queer, and we’re not going away!”

The Pride photographs you see here were taken by Petter Hegre during his internship with Richard Avedon in New York City in the summer of 1991. As Pride took place on a weekend that year, Petter had some time off from his grueling apprentice duties. Not ever having attended a Pride, Petter was taken aback by what he saw. “Being a European and coming from a region that has fairly liberal attitudes toward nudity,” he recollected in a recent interview, “I was positively surprised at the open and uninhibited spirit of the parading people and realized that Europe was still behind when it came to the liberation of sexual minorities.”

His first task was to position himself as a photographer that people could trust and open up to. Trying to blend in and not be too pushy, he carefully handpicked his subjects and discreetly invited them to pose for him by signaling that he wanted to take their picture. Of course, this wasn’t always so hard to achieve, for as he points out, “many of them are born exhibitionists and love to be photographed. I received a lot of suggestive invitations during the shoot.”

The atmosphere was swirling with energy, and Hegre did his best to keep his balance and composure. Leather queens roared by on motorcycles, pierced naked women on leashes danced in circles, giant floats full of throbbing hunks in nothing but thongs barreled down the seething avenue, and millions of spectators lined the sidewalk gaping, gasping, and gyrating with the beat of the streets. To get the right shot, Hegre had to stay focused. “Shooting in a parade required a quick eye,” he remembers. “Moments happen and vanish in a tenth of a second, so I often stumbled upon people because I was fixated on my camera and trying to seize the moment.”

And in fact, he partly ascribes the powerful beauty and immediate intimacy of the photos he took during Pride that summer to the camera he was fixated on – a two-eyed Rolleiflex from 1948 with Kodak’s tri-x film inside. Hegre claims that, “using an old camera can ease communication with the subject. It is not as intimidating as a new and modern camera can be. Also these kinds of camera are usually operated from the hips, so you can’t hide your face behind it. This is why such cameras are good for making documentaries as well.”

The resulting photos ended up in Hegre’s now legendary, rare, and sold out photo collection, entitled My Book. Full of character, vibrancy, and dripping with pleasure and rebellion, these photos eloquently capture the spirit of Pride. There is a palpable grit to each photo, giving away the fact that it was truly “a man in the street” who took these shots. Each picture is a celebratory observation of the energies that are released on that day when thousands upon thousands of closeted individuals let their sexuality shine in the open day.

Looking through the collection, the essence of Pride soon grabs you. There’s a photo of two women kissing, and in the act of their faces conjoining, they seem to lose their “feminine” sexuality as the observed object and become two opposing forces, powerful and desiring, face to face, embracing at the mouths, desexualized yet never so sexual.

Compare that to the photo of two women, topless, dancing in a circle like children arm-in-arm swirling on the playground. Anyone would be hard pressed to find a more genuine, beaming smile than that on the face of one of these women. Her tits out in the open, observers smiling on the sidelines, she swirls like a dervish, liberated and fancy-free, enjoying at least for this moment her utter defiance of society’s often ridiculous taboos against nudity.

The public (and innocent) rupture of this taboo is also poignantly displayed in a photo showing one topless and obese woman pushing another topless, obese woman in a wheel chair. The humanity in this shot is almost overwhelming. It doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to sense that the woman pushing the wheelchair is the caretaker/lover of the woman in the wheelchair, and one is re-convinced of the maxims “there’s someone for everyone” and “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Homosexuality is proven through this photo to often be just what heterosexuality is – a way for two people with different needs to meet and fulfill one another through extraordinary care and effort.

One particularly arresting image, if only for its political and religious import, is an image of a man standing in his underwear with his shirt open holding a large wooden cross. Around his neck smaller crossed hang, his nipples are pierced with crosses, and on his head he wears a crown of thorns. His other hand is making a mysterious sign. The look in his eyes is tired, beleaguered, but also triumphant. Is he worshipping Christ, mocking Christ, playing Christ, or does he think he’s Christ? It’s unclear, but the passion is powerfully evident.

In quite the opposite spirit, though with a similar subject, is the photo of a young man standing naked except for shorts, his arm raised in the air, and his face brimming with joy. Such a photo could well be a poster for Pride itself. The sharp and honed physique of the young man speaks volumes about the cult of male beauty and its many male admirers. The excitement in his eyes shows how happy he is to “be himself, if only for a day.” And the substantial package in his pants stands out as a sexual message of traditional masculine power within the supposedly feminine structures of male homosexuality.

Finally, proving that at the heart of “Pride” is the concept of “parade” – gathering, strutting, showing off – there is the photo of the lesbian revelers on the float. At the center stands a woman in her lingerie, striking a cocky pose. To her left are several of her happy cohorts. And to her right is a woman in a see-thru silk skirt, a leopard-skin bra, and a large floppy white hat shouting through a bullhorn. The message? We’re here, we’re queer, and we’re not going away. This is pride. This is power. This is parade.

What Petter Hegre saw on that summer weekend day has stuck with him, and, thanks to his talented camera, it’s stuck with us as well. Gay Pride on parade. For all to see. Unashamed, uninhibited, not going away. In a world where prejudice and discrimination too often bring senseless restrictions and injuries to many, these photos stand as a powerful reminder that the fear of homosexuality is more than just a fear of same-sex sex. It’s a puritanical fear of freedom and the fun that it beckons forth. In this sense, homophobia is deeply anti-freedom. But like the founding fathers of America (who, let us remember, also wore wigs and hose), Pride continues to scream, “Let freedom ring!”