Mummers Parade

The 5th annual Mummers Festival took place recently closing with a parade on December 14, 2013 in St. John's. The festival is a celebration and revival of the tradition of Mummering and Janneying in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The tradition was for Mummers to visit homes dressed in disguise. People would put together disguises using whatever they could find around their homes to make them unrecognizable to the people of the homes they visit.

The mummers parade is a chance for people to let their hair down, to play around and have some fun. And as you can see from the photos below they had a lot of it!

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

Mummers Parade St John's Newfoundland

For more information click here to check out the Mummers festival website! See you next December.

Downtown Vibe

Four years ago I thought I'd get out of my comfort zone as a photographer and hit the streets downtown to photograph the life there. Capture the human experience. It would be something new for me, over the years I had done wedding, corporate and landscape photography but I decided I wanted to do something different.

One focus of my trips to Water St in downtown St John's Newfoundland is to photograph the buskers. This is also a challenge technically and creatively because I usually have only a few minutes to get the shot and the lighting, composition, background and character of the photo are important to me. That's a lot to consider in a very short time with no prior planning. But I've done my best and learned a lot!

Here are some of the images I've created for this portfolio to date, hope you like them.

Downtown Vibe

Donny

Joey

Jammin' James

Violin Virtuoso

Rockin' Water St

Guitar Swing

Solitary Strummer

Wally

Steve and Noah

I'm still working on this portfolio. You can find more at my City Life gallery at ChasingTheLightFantastic.com Thanks for stopping by.

Archives of the Planet - The Wonderful World of Albert Kahn

In 1909 French millionaire Albert Kahn embarked on an ambitious project to create a colour photographic record of the peoples of the world. Kahn used the new autochrome process, the world's first user-friendly,

true-colour photographic system as the medium for his still photography. Kahn send photographers to more than fifty countries around the world and they took the earliest known colour photographs in countries such as Vietnam, Brazil, Norway, Japan and Mongolia. They documented in true colour French soldiers in World War 1 as well as the collapse of both the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires. The collection known as Albert Kahn's "Archives of the Planet" is comprised of  100 hours of film and more than 72,000 Autochromes!

All images copyright Musée Albert-Kahn

Imprisoned woman, Mongolia 1913

French soldier WW1

Paris 1909

Claddagh women 1909

Japan 1912

Because of the Wall Street Crash and financial ruin in 1931 Kahn was forced to bring his project to an end. He died in 1940. His legacy, still kept at the Musée Albert-Kahn in the grounds of his estate near Paris, is now considered to be the most important collection of early colour photographs in the world.

You can learn about these magnificent images thanks to the BBC documentary "The Wonderful World of Albert Kahn". The images can be seen at the the Musée Albert-Kahn, 10-14 Rue du Port, 92100 Boulogne-Billancourt, France

Albert Kahn through photography wanted to promote peace and a greater understanding among peoples. The Archives of the Planet is indeed a gift to the world.