V I V A l a F I E S T A !
Put your headsets on and fasten your seat belts – Ready ?? Push play!
Now that you have watched the video, let me tell you the rest of the story . . .
First, however, I need to tell you about the music in the video: it is from a creative commons license, so here is where I need to mention and give credit to Mariana Seoane who sings Mermelade. I don’t speak Spanish at all, so I have no idea what she is saying, but I love the beat and pace of the music and it seems to fit perfectly with the pace of the images.
I have lived in Santa Barbara for 5 years now and have never been to the Children’s Fiesta Parade nor participated in any of the activities associated with the Old Spanish Days Fiesta.
This year I jumped in with all fours, as you can see from the video! Specialty Color Services hosted another Holga event, the Holga’s and Fiesta Workshop, and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to get into the heart of the goings-on.
Lead by the fearless Tom Judah, who took all participants out into the streets of Santa Barbara, we met at Specialty Color Services, filled up on coffee and bagels and fruit and orange juice, loaded our Holga’s with film, then meandered our way from Cota Street up to Arlington and State Streets. And that’s where the fun began!
And, that’s where our group of 20 or so workshop attendees got separated . . . but that was kind of the idea: so that all of us were not shooting the exact same thing.
As for me, I ended up moving further south down State Street to a point where the parade would actually be moving through (or passing by me) versus the static location of the parade participants just starting out. And I took my digital camera with me – didn’t I mention I was in this for the gusto?
As the story goes though, my experience of the day was not through the lens of medium format film media camera (the Holga), it was through the lenses of the digital camera – to the tune of some 1300+ images later!
And about 1 1/2 hours after we were supposed to return to Specialty Color Services (SCS) to turn in our film and wrap up the workshop, I had to force myself to stop photographing and race back. That’s when I realized that I had only taken maybe 8 images on the first roll of film and I still had another roll to expose before I got back to SCS. However, after experiencing the fun and flare of the Fiesta spirit through song and dance and brightly colored costumes and confetti and kids, it was very very difficult to stop and focus on film.
Below are some of the images that were shot with the Holga – oh, by the way, these were cross-processed (putting slide film through the chemicals used to process color negative film) so the colors are more vibrant and the contrast is typically extreme.
on the way
the first parade float we encountered as we entered State Street
I have no idea how many exposures this is! Obviously I forgot to advance the film !
a sweet balerina ready to go home but she stopped long enough for me to take her picture - Mom said it was okay
riding in luxury
love this! would have loved to get closer - isn't Ian adorable?
we are done for the day
homeward bound
These last four images, though they were cross processed, don’t have the appearance that the first three images have. Perhaps because of the type of film: the roll may not have been slide film and therefore not subject to the changes created by processing one type of film in a different type of chemical. And since I was in such a panic to get back to Specialty Color Services way later than I was supposed to, I did not take the time to note the type of film these were shot on.