Real Old Baby

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

A black-and-white 35mm frame from the NYC Village Halloween Parade between 1982 and 1986 captures a tight-knit group of revelers as they navigate the dense nighttime crowd. In the center of the composition, a woman with dark, dramatic face paint stares directly into the lens with a wide, exuberant smile, her hands casually gripping a prop gun that is partially obscured by the shadows. To her right, a young child in a striped shirt bears a strikingly mature, almost weary facial expression that gives them the uncanny appearance of a grown man. The intense burst from a portable commercial flash illuminates the diverse DIY costumes and textures of the scene, from the long shaggy wig of the figure on the left to the headband and layered accessories of the woman in the foreground. This black-and-white snapshot perfectly preserves the raw, unscripted energy and the slightly macabre playfulness of the Greenwich Village streets during this mid-eighties parade.