About the Image(s)

We travelled to Rio de Janeiro in late January this year, timed specially to witness the Carnival. The Carnival takes over the city in terms of visitor numbers are of course huge - but the locals party ........ a lot! We were there 2 and a bit days and witnessed thousands of mostly less than 30's walking to the many beaches - in such numbers that the police had to close roads in the middle of the day with no notice. It was all very good-humoured - we chatted to a number who were just having fun (yes, they were just about "dressed"!).

Anyway - for those who don't know, the carnival event is staged in a linear stadium of a few humbled hards long starting at about 9pm, finishing at 4 am. There are many types of sectors - we were in one reserved for tourists only - on arrival, we found we were within a lovely group of Italians who were nearly 1/3 our age. Each Samba School fields some 3,000 participants taking about 45 mins to pass through.

This image shows one of the floats for this School and was typically small by comparison. In composing the many hundred I took (camera with fast medium length zoom and phone) was to attempt to concentrate of the event, including some of the stadium but not many of the crowd to reduce distraction issues. This wasn't easy, as inevitably as soon as the next School started coming through everyone stood up with their phones in the air!

The performances were flood-light which helped and in PP I tried to make the crowd darker while maintaining a realistic feel.