2024 mummers parade
It’s 2024. My first blog ever. The first week of the year. I find myself reflecting on the first day of the year, Mummers Parade.
Photographing the streets is so interesting, especially during city-wide events like this. These are main characters. I am just a participant in their story, but I come home with a millisecond frame of their life and I take that with me forever. Maybe every photographer comes across this thought right before that first frame taken for the day.
I love capturing the chaos. I involve myself as much as they allow me, smile, click, and maybe converse. I’m then forgotten.
One person yelled at me “either take my photo or not, don’t be secretive about it”. So blunt, but I’m just trying to see if I could frame the confetti flying over your head but got there 2 seconds too late.
A group of old Mummers told me to take a photo of them, then immediately waved off and chatted away. A young boy in renaissance jester costume asked for a photo and asked where he should stand; then ran off to his friends. I think about these moments often, why did they ask for a photo anyway? I often think about the excerpt from Diane Arbus when I get lost in this thought:
[…] But the camera is a kind of license. A lot of people, they want to be paid that much attention and that's a reasonable kind of attention to be paid.
Diane took photographs in the last mid-century. Now we’re nearly 100 years later. Still seeing this “license” being incredible proficient in the day of phones.
