Photos

The Amsterdam Gay Pride is organised every year since 1996 in the centre of Amsterdam. The most important part of the pride is the Canal Parade when lots of boats with colourful people, flags and music are sailing in a march on the canals of the city.

About 375.000 people visited the Canal Parade today. I was there as well - for the first time - and I took this photo there.

Most people came just for fun and for the party, but the pride also had a political message: violence and intoleration towards gay people is not good. This message was also meant for the Netherlands it self, where violence towards homosexuals is on the increase. (There has been some small incidents in Amsterdam recently.)

For the first time, there was a special boat for heterosexuals, as well as a boat for gays aged 12 to 16 (which was discussed a lot during the last weeks).

About the photo: it was not easy to make a good shot today, because it was so very crowed and people were pushing to take a good picture. Also the sun was a bit hars. About the PP: It cropped the photo, used the auto constast level, I sharpened the photos in layers, resized and framed it.