Yesterday and today, I took exactly 1,001 photos.
I was a part of two vastly different events – the Dia de Los Muertos parade, and a hike up on Mt. Lemmon.
The Dia de Los Muertos parade is an annual community event that is a wonderful combination of community participation and organized event-making. The actual parade is made of citizens of Tucson, who create fantastic and often monstrous costumes. Some are lighthearted – such as the large paper mache VW bus filled with grateful dead. Others were more morbid – effigies and odes to passed friends and family. The procession wanders along the downtown Tucson streets and ends in an empty lot with a low concrete stage.
And there, every year, some old magic’s made.
A giant paper cauldron, at least 15 feet in diameter, is filled with the wishes, fears, and desires of the thousands of gathered revelers in the field, raised high in the air with a crane, and lit for all to see. Another crane held a dancing troop hundreds of feet in the air. All of this is in addition to the dancing, fire dancers, stilt-walkers and other ceremonial touches.
It’s wild, primal, and very fiery.
Today’s hike was with Nyssa and Rhys and couldn’t have felt more different but still yielded some great photos. As a lifetime resident of Phoenix or Tucson, the notion of leaves that change color, snow, and, well leaves is rather a novel one. So walking through the brisk fall air with the falling leaves on the top of Mount Lemmon was fantastic and fertile photographic territory.
I’m also getting less shy about taking photos of people, although Nyssa is every bit as shy about being photographed as I used to be about photographing others. I admit I do like how sunsets don’t check their hair, though.Labels: community, Dia de Los Muertos, fire, hiking, photography |
