Hyack Parade: the photo essay that's taking FOREVER

For nearly the last ten years, I've been photographing, when life allowed, the marshalling grounds of the Hyack Parade.

I've used TLRs, SLRs, rangefinders, black and white, slide, C41, expired stuff and pro stuff, all in an attempt to visually do two things: take photos that I think are great, I mean GREAT, which I don't know if I've done that; and somehow capture what I find fascinating and contradictory and wonderful about the parade at its moment before the crowds.

This year, I used an Olympus Pen FT with a Vivitar 283 flash, both of which I found at the local Salvation Army over the years.

What made the half-frame SLR such a great choice is flash sync. The flash is sync'ed at all shutter speeds which tops out at 1/500. Which I had to use with 200 ASA film. It worked! And I love it.

Note the use of the Optex L-bracket. Two good reasons for that. The cold shoe mount on the camera is removable. It only affixes to the body with runners that slide behind a PLASTIC flange on the eye-piece. So if you want to wrench off your eye-piece simply lock on a flash unit bigger than the camera itself.

The other piece of equipment I brought with me was a chair. I lugged that chair around and got the parade folk to sit. And I'm pleased with the concept, though some of the framing, my fault, is off. Which kills me.

But the simple idea of getting people to sit really made the pictures for me. I plan to do the same next year.

The inspirations, as have always been the case for this project, are Diane Arbus, August Sander, William Eggleston, and Martin Parr. It's the ethnographic vibe of the work that strikes me. And the stateliness of the compositions.

I wish there were more pictures to share but I think these two diptychs may be the only good ones. Sigh. Maybe next year, I'll get enough strong images to put together a show.