The Giglio Festival has quickly become a yearly tradition for my family, mainly due to the excitement of watching a bunch of men hoist a six ton statue onto their shoulders
The giglio in all its glory! Plus Mootzi the mouse, my step-mom Nicole’s pal, attempting his own lift!
A visit to the Giglio Festival – actually known as the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Feast – has become a bit of a summer tradition. For the past three years, my dad, stepmom, and I (usually along with my brother and his fiancé Julie) have made the (not-so-long) trek to Williamsburg, Brooklyn to witness the men of this typical Italian neighborhood hoist statues weighing literal tons of pounds up onto their shoulders and dance around. I could go on and on about the details of this festival, but I’ve actually already done that in a post I did last year about this feast, filled with photos capturing the spirit of this neighborhood, and the story of what led to these men to perform this seemingly ridiculous task.
The men lifting “the boat” – another important lift of the festival.
These traditional July visits have been a long time coming for me. As a kid, driving home into the city from my grandparent’s house in Queens (what is now my house) along the BQE, we always passed the towering Giglio statue and ferris wheel that are hallmarks of this festival. My dad would always tell us about the feast and the excitement of the giglio lift. But never until a few years back did we actually start the tradition of visiting this festival, sharing sausage and peppers sandwiches and italian ices, and of course reveling in the shouts, sweat, and camaraderie these men share as they perform the ultimate feat of strength.
No Italian Feast is complete without a peppers and onions sandwich!
All of that excitement makes photographing this festival a ton of fun. There is certainly a lot of pushing and weeding in and out of crowds, pressed right up against people as you try to get front and center to the men lifting, but dealing with a little bit of body contact with strangers is certainly worth being right in the center of the action. For most of these shots, I tried to focus on the men as they lifted, watching their faces clench up with effort, and then release with happiness as the giglio was set back on solid ground. So without further ado, I’ll give you all a chance to look through the rest of these pictures, and end this post in the same way I did last year; “if you ever find yourself in Williamsburg in mid-July, the Giglio Festival – both in terms of food and people – will certainly not disappoint.”
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