With a grant from the likes of National Geographic, and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of enthusiasm for other folks’ enthusiasms, Charlottesville’s own Ross McDermott and Andrew Owen gallivant around the country documenting, through photos and video, the oddball festivals and celebrations that mark small-town life. The World Beard and Moustache Championships in Anchorage, Alaska; the Combine Demolition Derby in Hillsdale, Michigan; the Angola Prison Rodeo in Angola, Louisiana: all these and more are part of the American Festivals Project’s raucous yet touching oeuvre, viewable in splendid detail at americanfestivalsproject.net.
We love the open mind and unerring eye that the AFP guys bring to their work, and we love that they travel in a truck powered by veggie oil, and we love that they’re local. (By the way, they also documented this April’s Foxfield Races.) Keep it up, guys.
