Draped in Pride: Eduin by TR Pics

'It takes no compromise to give people their rights...  It takes no money to respect the individual. It takes no political deal to give people freedom. It takes no survey to remove repression.'

Harvey Milk

Like most annual celebrations, some years I get more excited than others. I get a little jaded, thinking of those that only preach 'good tidings of joy' when it's Christmas, or who only think of race issues when February rolls around. I remember a few years ago being annoyed with the changes in my town's PRIDE parade.  Over the last decade or so, it went from an edgy, sexual celebration, to more of a family event, with not only children, but companies both sponsoring and organizing many aspects of the celebration.  

My annoyance however, eventually moved to acceptance, and now finally on to appreciation. To actually have a parade, and have a celebration that could be counted on; to have a yearly event that had moved from 'will it happen' to becoming a tradition.  A tradition not only for members of the LGBtq community, but for all who wanted to support them.  I guess you can't really fight for inclusion, only to get annoyed when it actually includes and welcomes everyone.

Despite my excitement fluctuations, there are always symbols and visuals that tug at my emotions and get my energy engines revving up.  At Christmas, it's when I see the first lights on my neighbours houses, or when I finally put my Christmas tree.  Even if I wasn't looking forward to the holiday, the visual tug at memories and emotions that evoke my enthusiasm.  

With Pride, it's when images of the rainbow flag begin making appearances, the vibrant colors so powerfully representing both unique differences and our similarities. It's especially great when the flag is draped around someone who's experienced the pain of being different, and then embraced that difference, as being part of what now makes them who they are.

Like so many, I've had my own personal struggles the past year, and I wasn't thinking too much about Pride this year, that was until, seeing a few shots of Eduin and his rainbow of colors.  Many of you remember Eduin, and his work with Tom from TR Pics from a post I did early last month. (How It Should Be) I loved Tom's images of Eduin and loved Eduin's journey to body positivity, and how posing nude was his way of taking the power back and overcoming his insecurities. 

Tom has always used his skills as a photographer to celebrate the holidays, but his daily Instagram posts inspired him to get into even more themes.  During his most recent shoots, Tom asked many of the models he was shooting to take part in posing with rainbow themed props.  Throughout their many shoots together, Tom has come to consider Eduin somewhat of a muse, so he of course asked if he wanted to participate.

'Eduin responded wholeheartedly with a "Yes"! Although we had the best intentions of gathering a lot of rainbow stuff to shoot with, time ran out and we were very limited. Fortunately, he was able to make use of a rainbow towel and some sort of boa, and had fun with it. We shot is a closed porch area with a lot of light coming in, so the soft overexposed backlight really made he and his beautiful skin stand out. I'm very pleased with the large amount of work we shot." 

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