You might see someone in an outfit like this prancing down St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans and certainly in Rio de Janeiro. But South Broadway in St.Louis on a late winter day? The weather was wonderful for a parade, sunny, light winds, 42 F / 6 C, not hypothermia territory. I suppose you have to be young and resilient.
Now that’s eye contact. Halloween is a big, commercialized deal in the United States and this visitor to the Renaissance Festival looks ready to dish out more tricks than treats. No knocking on her door.
What this has to do with the Renaissance is beyond me. Someone was walking around in this costume at Artica a couple of weeks earlier, where it seemed more appropriate. Unless there was a little-known Jurassic Renaissance (of what?), this can't be about anything more than dress up and be silly. That's worthwhile by itself.
I didn't smell anything distinctive in the air, though. Limited medical marijuana is permitted in Missouri. Recreational sale and use is legal just across the river in Illinois. I assume there is a fair amount of interstate smuggling.
Occasionally I'll see someone I know when I'm shooting at the Mardi Gras parade. This is Audrey, who does a lot of the computer graphics work for Artica. She knows plenty about costume design and construction, too, and has a perfect sense of posing.
On another note, St. Louis set a high temperature record yesterday of 82F/28C. It beat the old record by 3F/1.66C. It's still winter.
A shadowy personage walks along the route of Saturday's Mardi Gras parade. Some people in Venice, the home office of Carnival, dress in elaborate, brilliantly colored costumes. Others are grave, monochromatic, perhaps even threatening. This person took the second approach and was staring straight into my lens.
