I did say that there were five images in this series, and that today's was going to be the most striking, but I've decided to put that one up tomorrow under a different title. I do like it, but it's relevance to Blackpool's Gay Pride 2006 festival isn't really apparent so I thought I'd post it separately.

This one though, like the first one, is a bit more typical of this sort of event :-)

While the shot I'll be putting up on Wednesday is the most visually striking of the five I'll be putting up from my visit to Blackpool's Gay Pride 2006, this one's my favourite, not least because it's rare to see men being gentle and affectionate with one another, especially in public.

As a lot of you know, in my other life I teach psychology in a UK university. One of the areas of research I'm especially interested in is the interplay between culture and identity, or more specifically, how culture shapes and determines the identities that are available to us. And in this case I guess the identity in question is to do with what it means to be a man.

"Big boys don't cry", "one of the lads", and so on are all pointers towards a version of masculinity that we all recognise and probably subscribe to in one way or another, but this is clearly not the only way of doing masculinity; as evidenced by this photograph. And I guess that what interests me here is that the gay community have negotiated a different way of being male: one that permits affection and gentleness, that stands in sharp contrast to our taken-for-granted assumptions about being a bloke. And the key thing, for me at least, is that this doesn't have anything to do with sexuality; i.e. I can imagine a world where all the straight blokes are as gentle and affectionate to each other as many of the men I witnessed at the festival. Sadly though, 'the world's not like that', and the range of possible identities open to men within our (normatively prescriptive) mostly heterosexual society is much more limited.

This is the second of five shots that I'll be putting up from Blackpool's Gay Pride 2006 festival that I went to yesterday; probably the least 'dramatic' of the five, and the one furthest away from summarising the nature of the event. Nonetheless, I like how it turned out.

On a related matter: one of the things I like about events such as this, particularly ones that explicitly celebrate a culture, is that people like to be photographed. When I shoot street portraits I often find that people can be suspicious – "why do you want to take my photograph?" – but at public events, especially those of a more carnivalesque nature, people are much more willing to take part.

Update: if I'd been just a bit more efficient I would have been able to tell you that this is a shot of Vicky and Vicky (yes, they're both called Vicky) rather than having to wait until Vicky left a comment identifying herself :-)

I do have three more shots to put up that I took on my walk with Libby the other day, but we went to Blackpool's Gay Pride 2006 today so I thought I'd share some of those first. The weather wasn't great, but the atmosphere and the people were wonderful.

There were some great characters to photograph, including quite a few of the Funny Girls, but in my usual disorganised way, I didn't manage to write down anyone's names. I did hand out some cards, so hopefully people will get in touch and say hello.

Update: this is Abbi from Funny Girls.