Don't Touch

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

This image highlights the playful, interactive spirit of the Village Halloween Parade in the mid-1980s. Captured between 1982 and 1986 on 35mm Kodak Tri-X film, this frame documents the spontaneous street theater where the line between parader and spectator often blurred. The high-contrast black-and-white film perfectly preserves the energy of the moment: two masked participants, their faces frozen in exaggerated expressions of fear and alarm, appear to recoil from the lighthearted touch of a smiling, unmasked man in the crowd. This candid interaction, set against the dark backdrop of a Greenwich Village night, exemplifies the raw community spirit and DIY ingenuity that defined the parade's evolution from a local walk into a major public spectacle.