Mardi Gras – Page 2 – The Michael Lam Collection's Blog

I have to begin by apologising for the amount of photographs in the album on the site… I normally go just for fairly close shots, but I thought that this year I’d try to get some of the whole shots with the costumes, I’m not too good at it, but I’ve been asked many times about why I don’t have the nice big costumes. Also, the Children’s parade this year was very engaging and the costumes very nice, and I think there were more of them too 🙂

Every year I think that the Children’s Parade is better to attend than the Adult’s Parade, it is shorter, even though the amount of entrants might be on par, even though they don’t speed down the road, they seem to be more organised and better managed, and this results in a very good flow of groups and floats down the street.

The sides of the street is also less crowded so as a spectator, I can enjoy it more and as a Photographer, I can get the photographs easier 🙂 without being elbowed and shoved, and possibly trampled.

I know it may be a lot of photographs, but I think you may find at least a few that appeal to you 🙂 Click on the image below to see the entire collection in the Gallery. Or just click this TOP 25 link for a select 25 images.

Republic Day, a day of celebration, we govern ourselves, no longer under imperial rule; some say that was a mistake, but it happened 41 years ago, sometime before I was born, so it’s all academic to me. Mashramani is the adopted celebration of Republic Day, celebrating a crop that’s harvested, a job completed; or in this day an age, just a big bacchanal, a reason to go out and party, to see the costumes and floats, both governmental and private sector.

Things to remember next year (if I choose to go out): SUNSCREEN, lots of water, and a really big flexible hat that won’t interfere with the camera in front my face.

Because of the recent rains, the “mall” where people usually walk and eat, picnic and party, was soggy, so they chose to walk alongside the bands, this was not good for a photographer, getting s decent shot was hard, so I took as many as were allowed, getting lots of spoilage in the process 🙂

I’ve chosen a tetrad of images for this blog post, those are by no means representative of the full gallery, but I had to choose something 🙂 Click on the image to go to the full gallery.

I hope you view the gallery and let me know which ones you like, commenting on the gallery is as easy as commenting here 🙂

In an attempt to explain Mashramani to someone recently I had to use comparisons, so lets just say that it has similar roots to Trinidad’s Carnival, Rio’s Carnival and Louisiana’s Mardi Gras; well, less Mardi Gras and more Carnival 🙂