It occurs to me that I never wrote about my experience at LovEvolution 2009, the San Francisco Love Parade. I'd never been to one before and didn't feel like dealing with the crowds, but I know many of the people who put on the the Tantra float and I was able to get myself onto it.

At the staging area, around 2nd and Mission, there were a lot of people but I didn't really grasp how big it was going to be:

 

Then the music started up, we got under way and turned out onto Market. It was at that moment that I began to realize that I'd underestimated the size of the event:

  

Seriously underestimated. They'd closed Market from 2nd all the way down the parade route to Civic Center:

 

It was a very interesting photographic experience in that I'm used to shooting people at parties as candids with the 100-400mm but I had to restrict myself to the 28-135mm kit lens when shooting from the float. I'm not used to having contact with my subjects and I had people literally throwing themselves at my camera:

   

It was some pretty serious fun being on a float in such a huge parade. We parked it at Civic Center with the rest of the floats and there was music until at least 7pm.



Full set here.