My first project was photographs of people dancing at street fairs and festivals.  I didn't start it on purpose. A print from the Eugene Oregon Street fair made the light bulb go on for me.  It simply became obvious that I had enough negatives that I ought to collect them into a more-or-less cohesive body of work.   The combination of warm sunshine, an electric crowd, and potently rhythmic music puts dancers into "the zone" and they touch the ground only because gravity requires it of them.  

 

Many of these photographs are from Seattle's Labor Day Bumbershoot festival.  In its original form it was, indeed, an umbrella festival of the arts that featured mostly local talent and allowed plenty of space for improvisation -- dance, music, goofy parades ....  It morphed into an upscale pop/rock music festival with expensive admission, long lines to headliner concerts, and forbidding "professional" cameras.  I liked it a lot better the old way.

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Between the 2020 pandemic and an overabundance of upscale pop/rock music festivals the sponsorship of Bumbershoot was returned to local producers and an army or volunteers.   I am hopeful that the new Bumbershoot will be a lot more like the old Bumbershoot.