For those who are too lazy to read the entire blog post, you can see all the photos HERE or by clicking on the photo above. I recommend that you DISABLE “Embiggen Small Items” in the option tool bar because the shots will look like crap otherwise.

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For the general populace (between the ages of say… 0~14 and then 30~R.I.P), the St-Patrick’s parade is a cultural heritage, a tradition, a family outing or perhaps simply a free show. For the rest however, St-Paddie’s is THE perfect excuse to get drunk a beautiful sunday morning.

The reason I said 14 instead of a more traditionally acceptable 18 years old is because of these shocking (at least it is for me) way-too-young kids:

Anyways, I’m getting sidetracked.

Drunk people aside, the parade was actually pretty neat. I actually arrived at the parade a good two hours ahead of time and had the chance to go in the “back-street” of Rene Levesque to take a couple shots. Things were somewhat interesting ranging from laughing horses, arabs with drums and army dudes with hummers:

To see the larger format images, simply click on the ones you think are interesting.

Somewhere in the middle, I met up with a friend I met on the Montreal Strobist group on flickr named Jean-Michel Lussier. Together, we found a sweet spot right on TD bank which is where we spent a good hour or so camped out shooting anything that walked, drove or flew by:

I suppose that since we were so strategically placed, we ourselves also became targets for enthusiastic photographers looking for interesting shots:

And unfortunately for us, we didn’t have cans upon cans of these babies to keep us interested in being at one spot watching an endless series of colorful people walk past us:

To compensate for our lack of beer canisters, we decided to walk around IN the actual parade as if we actually belonged there. This turned out to be a fantastic idea and only one person came somewhat close to telling us to move. I guess it’s the gangster leather jacket I was wearing that gave the illusion of a working professional… Anyways, the result is that it allowed us to get in close. VERY close.

Oh one thing: WTF? Miss Ukraine?

And of course its always fun to note some pretty interesting coincidences.

Riddle me this:

What, pray you, is Mr. JellyBean mad about? Could it possibly be because of the CTV staff’s over-enthusiasm in polluting the environment with happy green plastic, or for something more simple?

The answer ladies and gentlemen, is that Mr. jellybean is extremely mad at the young fellow raping a tree in broad daylight:

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And this pretty much ends our parade segment of things.

However, the fun part is just about to begin. Obviously with so many drunk younglings about, something’s bound to go wrong. First sign of trouble was  a rock-solid line of police officers blocking off access to the Micky D’s:

Sensing that trouble was afoot, we asked politely if we could pass through but were coldly denied access. Furious, I whipped out my dark side force powers to cloud their minds while Jean-Michel casually created an interdimensional portal to teleport us in behind enemy lines. Unfortunately, we teleported a couple kiddies with us by mistake resulting in this wierd shot:

Of course, our mere presence in this already volatile situation tipped the precarious balance of yin and yang forces within the cosmos. The police withdrew a couple steps and a couple brave (or should I say foolish and drunk) teenagers decided to prove their bravery by waving an Irish flag at the heavily armed soliders.

The result? One captured terrorist.

Of course, not everyone is happy with the capture… and one young fellow tries the unsucesful “whinning/reasonning” tactic to try to win back his friend’s freedom:

Unconcerned, the police retreat with their capture admist loud protests from the public:

But wait! It’s not oever yet!

After going to Harvey’s to enjoy a HIGH COLESTORAL DOUBLE BACON-CHEESEBURGER, we notice that the our mere presence causes yet another shift towards the dark side where a hoard of angry children seemed to be brawling it out. Obviously, not one to run away from trouble (but actually more prone to running towards it), I stand on top of a Van and capture some shots with the remaining memory of my card:

Which all ends with the heroic arrival of Jacky Chan.

Hope you enjoyed the shots cuz I certainly enjoyed the day! (Not so much the post-processing of 1300 photos!)

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Benjamin Wong

http://iintrigue.com

Montreal Based Photographer