Celebrating the General

A Year in America, 1981. At the German-American Day Parade on Fifth Avenue, New York, honoring General von Steuben, a revolutionary war hero, but maybe more an excuse to dress up and to celebrate all things German.

Breakfast is Served...

One Year in America, 1981, and this long suffering lad was hoping to win the Fancy Dress prize at the Ragamuffin Parade in the Bronx, New York

The Nun's Story

A Year in America,1981. A moment at a gay parade in San Francisco, where the all male Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence were using drag and religious imagery to call attention to sexual intolerance and to satirize issues of gender and morality. In San Francisco the Sisters have raised over a million dollars for various causes.

Head Shot

One Year in America, 1981. Not sure what I expected when I went to Founder's Day at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie but it certainly wasn't this eccentric young woman. Matthew Vassar founded Vassar Female College in 1861 but he quickly removed the word Female from its name, maybe anticipating that this chum of Robin Hood would one day arrive to celebrate his special day.

Flight Path

A year in America, 1981, and a model airplane enthusiast contemplates the magic of flight in the desert near Calico Ghost Town, California. I was traveling across the country shooting on a grant, and concerned that Americans would not be as eccentric as us Brits...I needn't have worried!

Judgement Day

One Year in America, 1981, and a moment of decision for this judge at the Snow Sculpture Competition in Stowe, Vermont. I just Googled it and, 35 years on, the event is still going strong, this week in fact. God bless America!

Rocket Man

One Year in America, 1981...an anti-nuclear protester at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. The message on his t shirt, Radioactive Rodents, refers to the partial nuclear meltdown that had occurred at Three Mile Island, in Pennsylvania, two years earlier, when the public were assured that radioactive rodent droppings found in the building posed no health risk. Good news then!