I heard the parade before I saw it. Flower tending quickly trumped by trumpets. I ran up the stairs for the camera lying on the table which just so happened to be freshly loaded with Fujichrome 100. Slide film. Nice.
It did not take long to catch up with the Portuguese procession and when I asked two elderly gentlemen resting curbside if it would be offensive to shoot the celebration, they urged me on after sharing some background on their culture. They explained that in Portugal the parade is known as Dia de Corpo de Deus, a celebration of the body of Christ represented by the baskets of sweet bread carried atop the heads of the elderly women within the Catholic church. This moveable feast is celebrated annually on the Sunday following Holy Trinity toward the end of May or early June.
When I asked the woman in the first photograph for her portrait, she curtsied gracefully without hesitation and gave her face wide open. The basket of bread steady atop her head as she moved.
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