MiKE: Halloween at Church Street

So, every year, in downtown Toronto, along Church Street from Wellesley to Alexander streets, there is a grand Halloween party, where people come together, put on costumes, hang out with friends and strangers, to be gawked at, photographed, and generally have fun, soaking in the atmosphere together with thousands of others. Of course, it needs to be mentioned that Church and Wellesley is the epicenter of the gay quarter of downtown Toronto; not that that necessarily means anything though. On the other hand, it was quite obvious that there were many queer people out that night, with some of the costumes reminiscient of those worn during the pride parade this year, and some outright re-cycles.

I went shooting (photographs) with the local Toronto Photography Meetup Group (which I guess could do with a classier renaming), which reminded me very much of the Aprilia Riders Club back in Singapore - boys (and one or two girls) with gadget lust who wanted to socialise with other like minded people and avoid the sad loner otaku stereotype; arranging meetings over the forums to meet at public places, holding up human (or otherwise) traffic, and the inevitable penis length contests as the quintessential getting-to-know-you banter. I guess some things are just trans-cultural.

So, anyway, we arranged to meet at 7:30, waiting till about 7:45 for latecomers before proceeding to the party, more like a street festival where people turned up in costume. As expected, the party only really got going later, at around 11pm. Till then, we walked around, photographing anything and everything that moved, or didn't (hooray for digital photography!). Soon enough, because it was a free-floating group, of which many of us were first timers who barely got to know each other, we were broken up into many groups; and the crushing crowds did not help.

It was interesting to see the kinds of costumes people had on. There was the usual gore and horror genres, the superheroes, political figures (I saw at least 3 different Sarah Palins, including the party host), angels, ethnic costumes, and the odd S&M couple here and there (I saw one bound submissive led by a chain around the neck). Interestingly enough, it seemed that there was an implicit understanding here that it was like a photographic festival - anyone could go up to anyone else in costume, and ask to have their picture taken with them; photographers could ask those in costume to pose, and they would willingly oblige, often hamming it up especially for those carrying big cameras and lenses. Often, we would not even need to ask, all we needed was to point a lens in their direction, and they would put up their act. This actually made it difficult to capture candid moments though, which I think would have made a better picture - like the one where this guy in some werewolf mask had to have his companion light his cigarette as he could not see where his mouth and cigarette were.

Anyway, enough talk, here are some pictures:

Sarah Palin as the party's host; apparently she's some radio personality from across the lake in Chicago. Notice the price tag on her sleeve:

I liked my flickr title and note for this picture; I wrote: "Don't mess with her... She has a pair of handcuffs and may have a gun hidden in there somewhere":

One of the ethnic costumes that looked like it came straight out of the Pride parade Thai float. Pictures like this highlight what I mentioned above about how it was a photographers' festival - people, even those not in costume posing with the costumed, generally didn't mind if their picture was taken by others besides their designated photographer (companion, etc):

One of those whom I had difficulty identifying the costume. Strangely enough, this picture has garnered a huge view count in a very short time on flickr. Any ideas why, and who the one on the left is supposed to be? Leave comments please.

The obligatory horror and gore costume. The obviously plastic nail through the head is just so fake. Even so, he was an enthusiastic performer, 'conducting' the photographers, telling us to "get your cameras ready now, blood coming out in 3, 2, 1..." after putting some of that fake blood in his mouth:

The Canadian swim team gals! It was not cold that night; in the crowd it was comfortable, but then, what would have been their costume if the temperature had been like a couple of nights ago, floating around 0-5ºC?

The pilot and attendants from "Trans-continental airlines", who won the best team costume prize. They were going around, asking people "Do you want some of our nuts"?

Palin again. This one is interesting, they were walking in opposite directions along Church street, met, and had to have their photo taken:

Ernest and Bertram got married. The anti-ending to this tragic tale:

One of the ethnic costumes, a pair of geishas:

And the winner of the best individual costume:

Vincent Van Gogh, which, if you look carefully, has his eyelids closed and painted, so that they look more like a painting. That was also a good idea, as he would have been exposed to thousands of flashbulbs all night. In his picture frame, he also had a few white LED lamps directed at his head. All in all, deserving of the award.

So, my thoughts? I'm mildly amazed and dismayed at the profligacy of the entire event, but then that is probably close to an extreme stoic position; cultures around the world have their ways of wasting resources for no better reason than to have a good time; for this I am thinking of Spanish (Italian?) tomato festivals, Chinese New Year decorations, Christmas, Japanese matsuris, among others. It was great fun for all, I only wished that less resources could have been wasted.

And the burning question on everybody's mind should be: so what did I dress up as? Why, a papparazzo, of course. What could scarier?