Piggy Dearest

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

A central figure dressed in a "Piggy Dearest" costume stalks through the NYC Village Halloween Parade, their striking presence rendered in the rich, grainy textures of black-and-white Kodak Tri-X film. Captured with a 35mm camera, the scene is punctuated by the sharp, high-contrast light of a Norman 200B Flash, which cuts through the darkness of the mid-1980s night. The masquerader wears an anthropomorphic pig mask and carries a matching doll, creating a surreal and campy aesthetic that defines the creative spirit of the era. In the background, blurred spectators and fellow paraders are momentarily illuminated, their expressions caught in the fleeting brilliance of the professional strobe. This evocative black-and-white photograph documents the theatrical grit and spontaneous artistry of the Greenwich Village streets during one of the city's most storied annual traditions.