“Welcome To The Muppets Show!”

"Welcome To The Muppets Show!"
We walked right into a colourful parade at the Universal Studios in Japan. The weather was brilliant then and even in the almost glaring sunlight, I managed to snap quite a few interesting and colourful shots. This particular one is of a “live” performer engrossed in his air guitar strumming. From Wikipedia.org:

An air guitar is the imaginary instrument used when pretending to play guitar. Playing an air guitar consists of an exaggerated strumming motion and is often coupled with loud singing or lip-synching. Air guitar is generally used in the imaginary simulation of loud electric guitar music, especially rock, heavy metal, and so on.

Interestingly, there are organized air guitar competitions held in many countries, including a world championship which was held first in Finland in 1996! I wonder if there will ever be an “air camera” competition one of these days 😛

Elation

Elated
One of the tricks I have come across about taking pictures at a parade is not to focus your efforts on the parade/performance. Rather, try instead to look out for candid moments among the spectators of the parade…

This was what I did during the Colours of the World Parade at the Dreamworld theme park in Bangkok, Thailand. The reward was a shot capturing the spontaneous joy and elation of this boy watching the parade. I have adopted a monochrome approach to the final image since this made the boy stand out from the rest of the scene (because of the dark-coloured T-shirt he was wearing).

And in case you’ve missed them, don’t forget to see these other pictures I took from my Thailand trip: this is BAD, Ushering In The Compliments.