This is the story of how I spent my summer scrabbling around London's busiest tourist hot-spots trying to photograph hundreds of elephant sculptures. Extensive photographic evidence can be found here.
For me, it all started on an extremely hot day in May. I took my camera down to Holland Park to have a look at their pigs. Real pigs, in this case, not painted sculptures. To my surprise, I came across two brightly-coloured elephants lurking near the Tube station. I'd read a little bit about the parade in Time Out, so I decided to see whether I could find any more elephants that evening. Several Tube journeys and London landmarks later, I'd spotted 40.
I was hooked and I had a plan and I *certainly* had too much free time on my hands. I wanted to find and photograph all the elephants.
When I got home, I must confess I was slightly disappointed to discover that (a) the organisers had produced a map showing the location of every elephant and (b) there had already been three other Elephant Parades. Suddenly my quest seemed less challenging and the event less unique. So I carried on anyway.
After a few weeks of searching, I'd seen about 200 elephants dotted around central London. Ticking off the others proved far more difficult. I found myself calling private members' clubs to book elephant viewing appointments, inveigling my way past auction house security guards by pleading for a peek at their pachyderms and scouring the internet for sightings of 'Cloudia', the restless Elephant Parade mascot who moved every day. A few elephants had been moved (or perhaps migrated of their own accord) from their mapped locations. Some were several miles outside central London. Whole weekends disappeared.
Having finally tracked down 257 elephants, I discovered that 'Gerald' (Elephant #135) had been withdrawn to the safety of Elephant Parade HQ to prevent him from causing blindness or being burned at the stake by a prudish pitchfork-wielding mob. Gerald had originally been positioned in a discreet side window at Selfridges. He was painted pale blue and adorned with rather tasteful autumnal leaves falling down his flanks. On much closer inspection, the leaves were actually leaf-shaped snippets of pornographic images. Several idiots complained, and Selfridges gave Gerald his marching orders.
In the end, my camera saved me. I'd posted a link to my photos on the wall of the Elephant Parade Facebook group, and the organisers emailed me asking to use one of my photos in their auction catalogue. I was pretty taken aback, as the one they'd asked to use was absolutely dire. Nevertheless, one thing led to another and I was invited to visit Gerald at their offices. But there was still time for one final twist in Gerald's tail. Trendy Z-list hangout Chinawhite, of all places, suddenly decided that they wanted to jump aboard the elephant-hosting bandwagon and Gerald was moved there. I popped along one rainy Monday morning, and finally conquered my white whale - or pale blue leaf-vagina'd elephant, if you prefer - in that insalubrious hellhole.
The event raised over £4,000,000 and more than 15,000 people have signed the petition. This elephant alone sold for an incredible £160,000. Two more Elephant Parades have already been held in Essen and Bergen, and four more are planned this year - in Copenhagen, Heerlen, Milan and Singapore.
Elephants: coming soon to a town near you! Catch them while you can, and donate whatever you can afford. They're awesome.
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