Notting Hill Carnival 2017
Dazed but happy, a man becomes a masterpiece From Pollock to Klein and back in hectic daubs The timeless initiation rite of the ageless participants We learn day by day as life flows like sand through our fingers Carnival teaches about African history and the urges of patience Changes will come and the longer boats […]
The Bacchanal is the debauch of colors Where participants are generously daubed At an initiation ritual on the heights of Chepstow The devils are then let loose down the Notting Hill Spreading the fear of the underworld rule among the gentry Photo Hugh Ardoin The Notting Hill 2017 Carnival Gallery
As the three graces and the three musketeers were four Young black beauties daubed in molasses strike the pose Tradition dating back to the dark times of the slave trade Emancipated slaves celebrated with the masquerade Thanking the devil rather than the god who had failed them And warning the masters of their impending doom […]
Colorful ballet of Caribbean flags and skins of every shade The girls proudly flaunt their colors in a hectic parade The razzle-dazzle of the all glamorous in skimpy outfits Beauty inside out in all its shapes, the fireworks of life In a dull and duller world, a life-saving injection of joy Photo Hugh Ardoin The […]
Photography is the record of an instant photographer’s mind snap And the subjects’ action or presence at the very same instant Without caption and narrative of the capture It is both a captive and a free falling image with an aesthetic message Floating into the viewer’s imagination to become a selfie of his thoughts With […]
From the powder room to the powder keg The battle of the colors rages on Wondering how the white bystanders always stay white Probably a twist of history or the short DNA… Photo Hugh Ardoin The Notting Hill 2017 Carnival Gallery
Escaping the Inferno of Chepstow Just to return later after looking back No black Orpheus or any other dago Could hold back Eurydice and her sister soul The choice of the dancing flames and eternal youth Respect of the rule of the living was not worth the sacrifice Photo Hugh Ardoin The Notting Hill 2017 […]
Still we wonder about this year’s Carnival As the BLM movement searches its own soul The government imposes 1984 grade social diktats Will the black community offer a new surrender Or let the spirit and culture prevail over adversity Claudia Jones Cumberbatch still under the name of a slave owner Fought against racial crimes with […]
We come for the drinks and we get the dreams The two-days and three nights happy hour We get rocked by the rum and reggae To rest our aching heads on a soft pillow Best memories are made sometime later Of things that happened and things that didn’t Photo Hugh Ardoin The Notting Hill 2017 […]
Young beauty changed into a Jason Pollock work of art Beauty can only equal beauty, it is an all encompassing definition Still shaken by the hazing gauntlet run ordeal up in Chepstow A rather rough initiation rite of crowd paint throwing and grope The coming of age for some, the repeat for the others who […]