An elephant poses in the rain with some Nuns on the Run in South London, England.

As part of the Elephant Parade campaign to raise awareness of Asian elephants I offered to help by photographing the installation of one of the sites – the More London site by the River Thames.

Was an early start – 8am – and little did I know it was going to be raining for pretty much the entire day.  I also didn’t know that Barnardos was holding a run nearby too.  Made for an great photo opportunity though

It’s amazing just how much work goes into taking some elephants and placing them on plinths…18 of them at this one site alone.

The elephants were slippery due to a combination of the rain and some weird coating on the surface.  It took about 3 or 4 people to lift it onto a small board with wheels (try to imagine that – an elephant on a mini skateboard).  Not to mention the 25 concrete blocks that had to be placed inside each plinth after it had been placed…

My two 5D cameras were a little splashed and I cowered under an umbrella most of the day – for the sake of the cameras, naturally.

Thankfully, those cameras worked great the entire day and are still working just fine.   And after all, it was all done for a good cause so was well worth it.