From June 1st to August 25th 2011 Copenhagen was the scene of a colourful phenomenon.

Over a hundred painted elephant statues were found scattered all around the city centre, much to the confusion and joy of passers by.

Despite several conspiracy theorists putting forth some wacky ideas about teleportation devices and trojan…elephants…this has been a planned event. Aptly entitled “Elephant Parade Copenhagen” this was the Copenhagen stage of a cross-city open air exhibition aimed at supporting the cause of elephant preservation. You can read much more about this noble effort here, on the official site.

It was a time for people uniting around one common goal and appreciating the majestic beauty of Asian elephants. It was also an excuse for dozens of grown up men and women to spend their time painting elephant sculptures. This was a lot like the nerdy folk painting Warhammer figures, but on a larger scale and more socially acceptable, oddly enough.

Finding all of this quite curious I suggested to my girlfriend, who is into photography, to roam around Copenhagen and snap some pictures of the elephants for posterity. You just never know when hundreds of pictures of painted elephants will come in handy, do you?

“Man, what’s happening to me? This is the last time I go to a rave party!”

And sure enough, it started out as a fun activity and a good motivation for us to enjoy some summer days outside together.

However, seeing how my obsessive-compulsive brain won’t let me simply enjoy things, I had to turn all of this fun into a neurotic “gotta catch ’em all” Pokemon project. This wasn’t helped by the fact that while browsing through the Elephant Parade Copenhagen website I’ve stumbled upon this:

“Now all that’s left is for me to subdivide this map into identifiable sectors and we’re good to go!”

And thus, thanks to my obsessive drive for completion and my girlfriend’s photography skills we proceeded to chase down every…single…one of the 100+ elephants in Copenhagen. Yup, we have pictures, if anyone’s interested. You’re not? Come back, don’t leave me!