DANCING WITH GHOSTS
An ofrenda, or family altar shrine, at a Day Of The Dead celebration in Phoenix, Nov. 2, 2023.
By MICHAEL PERKINS
THERE ARE STILL SIZABLE STRETCHES OF AMERICA for which Dia De Los Meuertos, or the Day Of The Dead, remains a cultural asterisk, in contrast with those regions where it is sacred, mournful and celebratory, all at once. For a quarter century, I have lived in such a region, as the Valley of the Sun, or metro Phoenix, Arizona, is pretty much ground zero for the beautiful commemoration of family and spirituality that occurs in Hispanic neighborhoods each November 1st and 2nd. Catholics can specifically relate to the same calendar dates, as they coincide with the historic holidays of All Saints and All Souls Days. Also, scholars will remind us that Halloween, or the Eve Of All Hallows, which directly precedes November, was originally a time for dressing up as one’s patron saint. And therein lies the best connection to Dia De Los Muertos.
This year, I was invited to a DDLM festival held, where else?…in a cemetery, hosting a spectacular array of ofrendas, or the miniature altar-like shrines dedicated to departed members of one’s family. Precious photographs and votive candles are the main features, which are quickly expanded to include personal mementos of the dear ones, as well as endless sprays of bright pastel paper flowers, radiantly patterned hanging pennants, and, at this particular gathering, lots and lots of food. The dead are summoned by the endless skeletal figurines and sugar skulls that festoon every inch of every offrenda, and many of the celebrants themselves sport skull faces created with both mask and makeup. The atmosphere is never one of grief alone, but sadness alloyed with joy, as well as gratitude for the memories left us by our most beloved.
Dance and song narrow the gap between the “realities” of life and death.
Obviously the supernaturally tinged flavor of DDLM is paradise for a photographer, and I find myself trying to do justice to the sweetly spooky vibe by making images that are beyond mere documentation. It’s challenging to try to optically suggest a feeling, but it’s also rewarding when something unexpected makes it into the camera. This year, in using a lateral fisheye to twist the concept of space and thus suggest a kind of dream state, I also had to get comfortable with a bit of blur or distortion, as if I were able to capture ghosts in mid-dance, rendering the vanished visible, if even for a moment.
As Shakespeare said, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy, and seeing so many people in one place taking so much solace in re-connecting to those who have gone before creates a tremendous, electrical release of energy. Trying to make images of something that floats tantalizingly between life and death is an adventure I can’t resist.
STEP RIGHT UP
1/1250 sec., f/5, ISO 100, 55mm.
By MICHAEL PERKINS
PHOTOGRAPHY SHOULD ALWAYS OPERATE, at least to some extent, as a cultural mile marker, a chronicle of what time has taken away, a scrapbook of vanishings and extinctions. We make records. We bear witness. We take pictures of the comings and the goings.
One of the things that has been going, since the coming of the permanent, Disneyeque theme parks, those sanitized domains of well-regulated recreation, is the great American carnival, in all its gaudy and ever so slightly dodgy glory. Loud, crude and exotically disreputable, these neon and canvas gypsy camps of guilty pleasure once sprang up in fields and vacant lots across the nation, laden with the delicious allure of original sin, that is, if the first apple of Eden had been dipped in shiny red candy. We came, we saw, whe rode, we ate, we clicked off millions of snapshots on our Kodak Brownies.
1/125 sec., f/5, ISO 100, 165mm.
The thing that made it all so magical was geography. Unlike Seven Flags or Cedar Point, the carnival came to us. Like the circus, the carnival was coming to your town, just down your block. That meant that your drab streets were transformed into wonderlands in the few hours it took for the roustabouts to assemble their gigantic erector sets into rickety Ferris wheels and Tilt-a-Whirls. And then there was the faint whiff of danger, with rides that made dads ask “is this thing safe?” and crews that made moms repeat horrific tales of what happens to Little Children Who Talk To Strangers.
It was heaven.
1/250 sec., f/5.6, ISO 100, 35mm.
The images seen here are a partial return to that sketchy paradise, with the arrival in my neighborhood, this week of a carnival in an area that hasn’t hosted one in well over a decade. It’s almost as if Professor Marvel just ballooned in from Oz, or Doc and Marty had suddenly materialized in the DeLorean. It’s that weird. Four days in, and I’m there with a different lens each time, sopping up as much trashy delight as I can before the entire mirage folds and all our lives return to, God help us, normal. Photographs are never a substitute for reality, any more than a hoof print is a horse. But when dreams re-appear, however fleetingly, well past their historical sell-by date, well, I’ll settle for a few swiftly stolen souvenirs.
thenormaleye 