I don’t know about you, dear reader, but I do know that I personally could stand a dose of positive juju right about now, and so could some usually-upbeat human beings who are near and dear to me.
One friend received news this week from her doctor that she’s got a health issue and is probably facing chemotherapy. Another friend is having a tough time with her job. It’s been a week of concern and, yes, even heartache here, so, as I considered what photographs I’d post today, I settled on two goofy, just-for-fun images that I shot recently in Seattle.
The backstory on the pictures goes like this:
I was headed to a professional shoot and had driven into the city hours ahead of time so that I’d have plenty of time to get to my shoot without having to stress about Seattle’s almost-always-sluggish traffic. As I passed through a neighborhood near the University of Washington, I saw that throngs of people -- many wearing wild costumes -- were marching on a bike trail, and an even larger crowd had gathered in a park. There was live music and it was a pretty day and I had time on my hands, so I stopped to see what was up.
It turned out that I’d stumbled upon the big Multiple Sclerosis Walk-a-Thon. Some participants were dressed in clown suits, while others were wearing bright orange or pink wigs. I saw men dressed as women, and women dressed as men. It was a crazy, funky, yet celebratory kind of atmosphere, everyone obviously happy to be raising money for an important cause.
Hanging out with those people and making a few pictures -- if I took someone’s photograph, I gave them my business card so they could contact me for a free picture -- I couldn’t help but catch the crowd’s upbeat energy.
Goodwill was palpable... you could feel it in the air.
