Brains

16x20 inch Black & White print on Epson Art Cotton Smooth 250 gram paper. From the NYC Village Halloween Parade, 1982–86.

A bizarrely scientific family unit navigates the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade in the mid-1980s, creating a scene of domestic sci-fi horror. The father figure, sporting a prosthetic bald head wired with electrodes, holds a preserved brain in a glass jar, while the mother looks on with a dramatic, painted expression. Adding a touch of dynamic energy to the frame, their infant seems to be almost flying toward the camera lens, bundled in a fuzzy costume with a pacifier firmly in place. This black-and-white analog shot, captured on 35mm Tri-X film, utilizes a powerful Norman 200B flash to create sharp highlights on the father's lab coat and the tangled wires, separating the group from the dark New York City night. The grainy texture of the 35mm Pentax frame preserves this surreal family portrait with the high-contrast grit typical of 1980s NYC street photography.