San Francisco holds the ‘How Weird Festival’ every October. I attended the 2021 rendition. Despite the rather dumb title, I found it to be friendly, joyful and fun. Lots of costumes, drinking, naked people, good vibes, great live bands. My subject in this portfolio is a guy I call Holy Joe. I had to make up a name because he didn’t want to reveal his...or even have much of a conversation. He had no interest in my sending him any of my photos. He was content to just keep groovin’ on the religious persona he’d affected…walking around and doing odd poses, rarely speaking to anyone, but very pleased to be photographed. His ‘range’ as a subject was limited, but as I observed from a slightly shifting perspective, what became interesting was the interplay of his fake-serious persona with the cast of busy festival-goers continually passing by.

There’s not a particular story arc in the portfolio. The feeling I got from this as I reviewed and assembled the images was that of peering into a dreamlike purgatory or limbo state…an urban afterlife or a way station…populated by an unknowable cast of young but contended visitors. Holy Joe is mostly ignored…or unseen. Was he actually ‘there’? Was anyone?