Manchester Pride 2025 – Street Photography in the Thick of It

**Canal Street. Manchester Pride 2025. Robert Watson.**

Manchester Pride 2025 Street Photography.

On Saturday I went out to photograph Manchester Pride, something I’ve done for the past few years. Last year was frighteningly busy along Canal Street. It was so packed that it barely felt safe. The crowd was moving so slowly that I found myself wedged in with nowhere to go. But oddly enough, that’s when the pictures came alive. Being shoulder to shoulder with people gave me just a fraction more time. Saying that, I mean a second rather than half a second to make a candid frame before someone noticed me and posed. The results were some of my favourite photographs I’ve ever taken at Pride.

Street Photography at Manchester Pride up close

As always, I shoot on film, which means I don’t get the instant feedback digital photographers rely on. I have to wait until I’m back in the darkroom, hands in the chemicals, to see if I caught the moment. That uncertainty is part of the magic for me.

This year, I wanted to push myself further. I shot the daytime as usual, but I also took a flash out at night to see what might happen. Shooting with a 28mm lens means I need to be close…very close. And with flash, that can feel intrusive. The last thing I want is to unsettle people without reason. So it was a real blow to discover, after developing my films on Sunday morning, that the flash hadn’t been syncing properly. Almost everything from the night before was just black frames.

Rather than give up, I decided to go back out on the Sunday. I’d never photographed Pride that day before, but from what I’d read it was still lively, just not quite as overwhelming as Saturday. This time, with the flash working, I shot six more rolls of film. And finally, the pictures I’d been hoping for came through.

The Sunday night work is some of my favourite photography I’ve done at any Pride. In black and white, the images strip away the rainbow spectacle you expect from Pride, and show something closer to how it feels rather than how it looks from afar. Gritty, fun, close-up and captivating. They’re full of joy and love, but they could just as easily be mistaken for photographs from another era.

That’s what I love about street photography at Manchester Pride; it’s not about chasing the colourful floats or wide shots of the parade, it’s about being right there in the thick of the crowd. Pressed up against strangers, catching those fleeting moments of laughter, intimacy, or chaos that would vanish in an instant if you weren’t looking. Pride, after all, is about people.

I’ll be sharing more from the series over the coming weeks. For me, these photographs stand as a reminder that sometimes the best work comes out of mistakes, persistence, and the willingness to get back out there. Close enough that the moments can’t escape you.