Best of Mermaids 1

I’m going to miss the mermaid parade this year.  And, yes,  I AM going to miss it.

But you don’t have to.  Click here for info to get started on your way.   It’s free, although you can choose to pay for access to the staging area where I took some of these photos.

This’ll be the second time I miss since I first went in 2004.   I go because of the mermaids, of course.  Mermaids tell me they often linger below the surface in boat photos I take.

Seriously, while making my way around the five boros and beyond, I see scenes that would make powerful images, but it might be creepy to intrude into strangers’ lives to get those shots.  In fact, I’m not really a people-photographer, yet the mermaid parade is all about posing.  Paraders want their photos taken.  Once a mermaid even asked to take MY photo, but some sort of electromagnetic pulse zapped her camera.

If you’re not from the greater sixth boro, the parade happens on Coney Island, now a barrier beach.  Some history of the esprit of the beach I alluded to in this post from 2010.

Hints of NYC’s diversity emerge along with the denizens of the deeps.

 

 

 

 

A body paint artist there seems to take inspiration from coloration on amphiprioninae.

 

 

There are even mermen, or in this case someone I know posing as a navigator about to be dragged off course and possibly to see Davy Jones by a siren.

A lot of families come to the parade; in this case, a friend’s daughter attracted the attention of a mermaid with magic powder.

 

 

Each year a king and queen are named . . . as is true for many of the parades that happen each year in the boros, and

this royalty needs to be there before the marchers step off.

As I said, I’ll miss it this year, which has prompted me to have another glance at my photos of past years.

All photos here by Will Van Dorp.