Legendary Mardi Gras photographer denied full access to 2016 parade
Image: C.Moore Hardy. (PHOTO: Viv McGregor)
C. MOORE Hardy has been documenting Sydney’s LGBTI community for more than 30 years, especially the annual Mardi Gras parade, but for the second year in a row has been denied full access to photograph along the parade route tomorrow night.
Hardy said she has been working behind the scenes for six months pleading with the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras board to grant her access all areas (AAA) to the parade route.
After her months of campaigning were not successful, Hardy took to her personal Facebook page to plead for community assistance to convince Mardi Gras organisers to give her AAA to photograph the parade.
Only four photographers who are employed by Mardi Gras have AAA photography access. All other photographers who are not employed by the organisation are assigned to media bays along the parade route for safety reasons.
Hardy, who has been photographing the parade every year since the 1980s, is one of those photographers who has been assigned to one of the media bays behind the barricade at Taylor Square with other photographers who are not employed by Mardi Gras.
“I’ve documented the parade for 30 years, thousands of my photos are in the Sydney City archive,” she said.
“I see (having full access) as important to having a continuity of history, especially while I’m still alive.
“Last year when I applied, I was given access but didn’t realise I would be barricaded in with other photographers.
“I watched as a lot of straight photographers walked past the barricade onto the parade. I watched as they did it, when they were told they weren’t supposed to, I stayed where I had been told.”
Hardy said she felt hurt that she hadn’t been recognised as an institution of the Mardi Gras Parade.
“I have quite a few mixed emotions, on the one hand it makes my angry, makes me feel sad, it makes me feel stronger,” she told the Star Observer.
“This is not the way you treat your photographers, you don’t treat your community like this. For this to happen I’m persona non grata as far as (Mardi Gras) are concerned.”
In a written statement sent to the Star Observer, Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras said restricting how many photographers were allowed onto the parade route was a safety issue.
“With so many people marching in support of the LGBTQI community our priority, from a logistics point of view, is to ensure the safety of the thousands walking on Saturday night and the hundreds of thousands watching,” the organisation said.
“Everyone who is accredited, as is the case with C.Moore, has access to one of four media areas inside the parade route. They also have access to the marshalling area before it all starts to capture our fabulous marchers up close. These media areas provide excellent access and views to photograph or video the parade as it passes by and also keep media personnel safe during the night.
“We wouldn’t be the global beacon of diversity we are today if the parade had not grown into what it currently is. In the interest of giving everyone fair and equal access to spread our messages to the world and provide a safe environment for our marchers, these logistics are a necessity.”
Sydney’s LGBTI community has rallied behind Hardy and has inundated the Mardi Gras Facebook page with messages of support for the photographer, calling on the organisation to grant AAA access to the parade route.
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[DISCLAIMER: Star Observer’s staff photographer, Ann-Marie Calilhanna, is one of the four photographers who has been granted AAA. She is also employed by Mardi Gras and Star Observer is a media partner of the organisation.]
hold on. many photogs and other media partners dont get this right even when sponsoring the bloody parade. what makes this photographer better than any others who are supporting the parade?
stick to the rules and you wont be disappointed.
You can not be fucking serious? It sounds to me that the Mardi Gras has become way too obstructive or conservative for my personal LGBTI taste. What is next? The Mardi Gras giving a political donation to the Liberal party or god forbid Fred Nile perhaps? I just cancelled my ticket! The Mardi Gras self-regulations have become the fox in charge of the hen house! And the Liberal government is a bull in a China shop! We need a federal election urgently! Remember the Liberal party were the ones who maintained a ban on gay sex, unequal age of consent, a ban on gay adoption and a ban on gay marriage, introduced anti-bikie and terrorism legislation, metadata, euthanasia, centrelink monitoring your bank accounts, voted against federal anti-discrimination laws, introduced Sydney lockout laws on Kings Cross and took funding away from renewable energy and also remember workchoices!
If Tim Wilson has anything to do with it as a future politician…
He’s a free-market fanatic
It’s going to get much much worse!!
Tim Wilson looks like he recently had his Liberal face stuck inside the toaster!
David Clark!
What happened to our crazy, beautiful, chaotic parade? When did they start to deny the creative people who gave MG its soul? Let C Moore in!!!
Safety is a bullshit argument rolled out whenever there is no real justification for stupid decision.
Just be honest and say you don’t like her or her photographs but stop the rubbish excuses!
Diversity? As our young people so eloquently put it, are you serious? As a ’78er this fiasco will not be forgiven, nor will I let it go away. I just hope that it doesn’t take almost 4 decades for you to apologise, Mardi COMMERCIAL Gras!
What exactly does AAA access entail? Is it just the freedom to move around several media bays, or is it a special section?
Of course she should be given a full pass.
She ran around for years freely documenting from her point of view. To take that away from a dedicated vintage documentor is not only disallowing her to finish the job she started many years ago but it is also robbing future generations and the wider community of her extensive body of work .
The very fact that C.Moore Hardy continues to give herself and connect as a lesbian photographer across decades, surely invokes pride for her continuous captures of the historical element of this event through her own connection to her community. How stupid not to want to keep her there!
But don’t mind me. What would I know I’m just a straight girl having a cuppa here in among the diversity of Wollongong…
Other than the fact that she is Steph Sands’s partner and puppet Fran Bowron is a non-entity. And her statement is worthy of something emanating from the North Korean government. It is disgusting enough that the organisation has sold almost everything it has to Destination NSW. Now it denies the sacred territory of the Parade route to anyone other than its own employed photographers. Why? Simple – then it owns the copyright and therefore controls the imagery of our own community for 70 years. These people are revolting. Rise up against them.
C. Moore Hardy looks like a real safety risk to me. Such a tedious, bullshit, pat response.
The Mardi Gras board of directors need to recognise that “we wouldn’t be the global beacon of diversity we are today if the parade had not grown into what it currently is” without the contributions of people like C. Moore.
You have to be in with the in crowd with Mardi Gras. Gave up years ago trying to do anything that involved lesbian and gay people of any merit.