Carnival Without A Home

Yes folks I am still alive. seems like I only write these days when a carnival issue is at hand.
Anyway Broward Carnival (South Florida) is about 3 weeks away, it is the premier West Indian event is South Florida now surpassing even the original Miami Carnival in both size and entertainment value.
Problem; the event is now homeless. The official launch is tomorrow Sep 9th with Kiddies Carnival on Sep 30th and the big jump-up on Sunday Oct 7th. It was supposed to be held at a park in Miramar this year but at the last minute it seems as if the political powers that control that Miami suburb have have suddenly had a change of heart. Talk of too much garbage, too many people, too much traffic seems to have prevailed. This is quite a big deal down south, the Miami Herald has carried an article on the matter everyday since Thursday. Somehow I get the impression that the paper is elated about the carnival being put out. Maybe I am reading too much into the articles. Here is the latest.
The Kiddies Carnival is safe as it will be a much smaller event held at a park in downtown Fort Lauderdale. But the Oct 7th jump-up is questionable at this point. Maybe the Caribbean carnival model is just not suited for American cities; Atlanta has location problems almost every year, New York always has issues with the NYPD and non-West Indian vendors. Only Toronto seems to have mastered the carnival in the city thing north of Havana, and of course they are not an American city.
Oh well I really hope it comes off I am so looking forward to shooting the pictures.

Some ATL Carnival Shots

Yes I know, almost two months late. What can I say? I have been busy.
Anyway as promised some of what I shot that weekend back in May.
The carnival was okay, but had its issues; it is now split into three fueding factions. Not enough organization as usual. We need to get it together, its been about 20 years now and mass confusion and greed still reigns supreme. I say no more. Hope you enjoy the pics below........

The Flames "Heat" up close.

The real HEAT in the Red Hot Flames!!

Big ting "killing" Bunji's drummer wit wine!!

Big ting wining on a cage!

Nadia Batson, true Caribbean Girl!

KMC Band warming up the crowd.

Trini Oh Trini!

Trini 2 De Bone!!

Rudder shares his message

David Rudder singing for the people.

Sparrow Pushes On!

Sparrow still going strong!

Faye Shakin What God Gave Her!

ATL Carnival

Well the ATL Carnival season is upon us once again. The downtown mas ting is usually a joke, just nuff crowds looking on and about a dozen lame mas bands and music trucks. The route is short and usually ends up in a stadium or park where there is a soca show and West Indian vendors selling island food and other such goodies. Nothing to write home about. However the night fetes and shows (they have nothing to do with the official carnival committee) are always top class with all the popular soca and reggae artists in attendance. In fact we usually end up over-saturated with too many night events during the 3-day weekend.
Since at this time of year I put on my "Press" cap , I get into most of the events free so long as I have the camera equipment in tow. In fact me and a journalist bredrin of mine normally team up to cover the local events worth publishing. He writes I shoot. Clients are Gleaner, Observer, Caribbean Star and various fly-by-night West Indian magazines. Anyway the two flyers attached are the beginning of our coverage this weekend; the Adrenaline is a club gig which is NOT my favourite setting (smoke, overcrowding, dim lighting). The Georgia Music Fest will be outdoors and perfect for me (daylight, open air, huge stage, nuff space). I am really doing the former only because my bredrin want to cover it, but who knows maybe I'll end up having a good time. I'll write a Post Mortem blog later next week with a few of the pics.

Brazilian Soldiers Killed

Donald Rumsfeld briefed the President this morning. He told Bush
that three Brazilian soldiers were killed in Iraq .
To everyone's amazement, all of the color ran from Bush's face,
then he collapsed onto his desk, head in hands, visibly shaken,
almost whimpering. Finally, he composed himself and asked Rumsfeld,

"Just exactly how many is a brazillion?"

AFTER

No I didn't forget to post Chewy's "after" shot, it just took me that long to get to trimming him down. He actually got a final trim a little lower than this still, but from these pics you get the general idea of his dread to balhead transformation.

Five Years of No Labor

Shot a nice wedding on Saturday. The owner of these "claws" was a part of the bridal party. It took me a little while to ask her if I could shoot the nails as I didn't know how she would react. When I finally did she was very cool with the request. Of course she had no idea that her nails would get online. A very nice lady though, took her 5 years to grow these babies. Apparently she has to paint them with a special sort of acrylic to prevent them breaking or splitting a few times a month. Am guessing as a rule she doesn't do much housework.

Goodbye Locks!

Well its that time of year again. My dog Chewy got a stay of execution as I could not cut off his dreads last week because of the sudden change to cooler weather. But this weekend; goodbye pretty locks, time fi de baldhead Chewy again! He couldn't handle an ATL summer with all of that wool. But don't worry chewy, by Oct- Nov your locks should be back to its full glory and when I walk you in the evenings all the hot young girls will be saying to me "What a lovely dog! What's his name? Does he bite? He's beautiful!".