Emma Crawford Coffin Races (part 1)

(no, this is not a picture of me. there are no pictures of me)

Okay, that could have gone better for me. I forgot my shades in my car. I forgot to recharge my actual camera before I left, forcing me to take most of the pictures with my phone. It was the most crowded day in the Coffin Races' 19 years. I may have been the only person, out of 8,000+ attendees, who was there by himself. And my heart just wasn't in it. On the plus side, the weather was nice, the PA was loud and clear (the Halloween music really boosted the event) and nothing of an actual disastrous nature took place. But, jeez, it was crowded. Just like the last time I went, I fled town when the actual races had barely gotten underway.

Anyway, it's the parade that gives you the real photo-ops. The coffin race teams all file past the crowd with their "coffins", which are actually carts with one passenger, intended to represent Emma Crawford in her coffin (it's a long story). Unfortunately, it's hard to get good pictures even during the parade due to people walking in front of your camera, team members looking in the other direction (a lot of those, as I found when I actually got home and went through the pictures), less than optimal lighting and whatever you call that phenomenon whereby subjects that look like they'll make great photographs somehow don't.

This was a nice concept, The Yellow Submarine, Paul, Ringo and a grim reaper carrying the tombstones of John and George. Seems a hair less macabre than the average team but whatever. Let It Be. At one point, the PA was playing Maxwells Silver Hammer, with a lot of the hippie crowd singing along.

Normally the hearses are the main part of the parade but the hearse clubs were all on strike for some reason. The scab hearses get an A for effort but there weren't many of them.

If there were a dozen of me with cameras I couldn't have captured a tenth of the interesting things at the parade. It's worth doing an internet picture search for. I'll do one more post with my pics from this year but, until then, why not peruse my vastly superior 2009 Coffin Race (parade) pictures:

Hearse Looking At You, Kid

Off-ed to the Races

More Coffin Races Pictures