Sunday 28 July. I had ticked this date because there were festivities organised by the Chinese community in Saint-Denis to celebrate Guan Di, a Chinese warrior who has attained the status of Chinese deity. He is also revered in other Asian countries such as Japan and Korea. The festivities were spread over several days, but I wasn’t available and I wanted to take Gwen and the children to hang out for a while late on Sunday morning. Before that, I had a tennis match scheduled that lasted longer than expected, so in the end we didn’t get down to Saint-Denis from our mountain until after midday and the boys were seriously hungry. A hungry kid doesn’t care about any festivities or demonstrations. All he cares about is eating!

I knew there were bound to be street food stalls galore but Ronan, my youngest, is a bit complicated when it comes to food and I didn’t want to run the risk of ending up with him pouting because there was nothing to his taste. We decided to have lunch elsewhere before going to see the Guan Di festivities. In the end, the kids weren’t really motivated once their bellies were full… Nonetheless, I went for a quick walk anyway to snap a few photos. I didn’t have much time to spare and my senses were on alert to try and find something interesting to photograph. The event took place in three separate locations.

• A school courtyard with street food stalls and a stage where groups performed dances. This was the Han Village
• The CHANE and LAW temples, where people could come to pray and pay homage to the god Guan Di.
• The street itself, where the parades took place.

I made a quick trip to Han Village and when I came across a line-dancing demonstration, I fled … Not a fan of that sort of thing. I did take a very interesting photo though. I’ll come back to that later. Afterwards, I started walking down rue Saint-Anne, which led to the temples. I didn’t get as far as the temples because the parade was about to start. The Lions were starting to stir and the drums signalled the start of the parade. So I stayed in the street to watch and photograph the parade. In the end, I only stayed 45 minutes at the event. I would have stayed longer, but as Gwen and the children were waiting for me in the car, I didn’t want to make them wait too long. I’ll organise things better next time there’s a party. It seems to me that they don’t have a big party every year. It’s far too much organisation.

As usual, from a photographic point of view, this kind of event is great. There are lots of people, it’s very colourful and, of course, you can go virtually unnoticed with your camera. For beginners in street photography, it’s the perfect opportunity. And for others too! All the photos I used for this blog were taken in less than an hour. There was still a lot more to do for anyone who came along for the three days of festivities. I’m going to focus on two photos that I consider to be keepers.

#1

Surprising, you might say! Didn’t you say something about a Chinese festival? And now you’re showing us a photo of Tamil women and children? Yes, it was a bit strange, but I realised that other cultural associations had been invited to share this moment. Réunion is a land of diversity, with Tamils, Chinese, Muslims and Christians all living very well together. I quickly got close to this small group who were getting ready under a white big top. I could feel the potential right away. It was almost 2pm and the sun was shining hard. I spent 5 minutes taking photos, waiting for something to happen. And you can imagine that something did happen in the form of this hand against the white background of the big top. I learnt my lesson from Sam Abel : compose and wait! The hand and the massive person on the right close the photo so that we can concentrate on the little girl and the young lady. B&W was the obvious choice for me. The colours of the dresses were very colourful, but made the scene too busy. Monochrome lets you just see the textures of the dresses and this dark hand on a white background made B&W almost compulsory!

I didn’t stay long in Han Village. I then headed down the street that led to the temples and it was there that I came across the parade and it was also there that I took my second photo, which brightened up my little outing.

#2

This photo has all the ingredients I like in street photography. Several layers, interaction between people in the background, the tilt screen that gives the photo dynamism. And of course, something that’s really important to me, all the elements in the composition don’t overlap, apart from one person hidden behind the wheelchair. Not really a problem for reading the photo. I’d spotted the photographer standing on the opposite pavement and thought there might be something there. I took several photos of this spot but nothing interesting until this photo.

I’m quite happy with this little express session. I think there was a lot of potential in this event. Especially as it lasted 3 whole days! I took a lot more photos than those shown here, but they’re of less interest from my point of view.

All the photos were taken with the Ricoh GR3 | Crop 35 mm.