Will Shuster’s 87th Annual Burning of Zozobra, Santa Fe, New Mexico

The Zozobra is a huge puppet that is lit on fire once a year in New Mexico, in the city of Santa Fe. I’ve always wanted to attend being from New Mexico and all, but this was actually my first opportunity to go.

The Zozobra was burnt this year at Fort Marcy Park in Santa Fe and there must have been over 50, 000 people there, it was a madhouse. I had always thought that it was a poorly put together event, but in reality I obviously didn’t know too much about it. Here are some photos I took at this years Burning of the Zozobra.

Photo – Will Barnes © 2011

I took this photo before the event began, I loved the colors and contrast among the trees and the vivid oranges and yellows. I took this with a Canon 7D right before dusk, no editing has been done to any on the photos in this post.

Photo – Will Barnes © 2011

I was amazed at the attendance, there must have been around 50,000 attendees, a total full house. A totally decent crowd, all walks of life basically. I enjoyed my company as well and met a few cool people while I was at it too.

Photo – Will Barnes © 2011

Although the stage was pretty far from the attendees, it was probably a good idea for all the stuff that was about to happen. The Santa Fe Fire Marshals, and Fire Department really had their act together considering the how windy it was.

Photo – Will Barnes © 2011

Even know the wind was blowing, it added some cool effects for photographers at the event. Again, I hadn’t anticipated it to be all that cool, but here I was standing just 100ft from a 40 foot puppet with glowing eyes. What Else did the night have in store?

Photo – Will Barnes © 2011

Alas, the event had begun, they finally shot off the fireworks. The wind was so bad they had to wait till the right moment to light the fireworks. So here it was, Will Shuster’s 87th Annual Burning of Zozobra, and I was there, as close as I could possible get to the Zozobra with now, fireworks overhead. Awesomeness basically!

Photo – Will Barnes © 2011

Wow, and girls with fire to go with the huge, eventually burning 40ft (approx.) puppet, Heck Yes…..Now I’m Excited. They call the Puppet “Old Man Gloom”, and they actually had a booth to write down things to be burnt inside the puppet during the burning. Since I’m moving back to Los Angeles next week, I put a little shout out to my new ventures. I guess the burning of the Zozobra is kinda like the dropping of the ball on New Years, “out with the old, in with the new”, that sorta thing.

Photo – Will Barnes © 2011

The Zozobra actually looked pretty scary in the dark with the lights shining up, kinda like the flashlight at the campfire trick but ten times more awesome. With glowing buttons, it kind of reminded me of Ironman…but Zozobra had two, so he must be pretty badass.

Photo – Will Barnes © 2011

And after all the cool firegirl action, it was finally time to burn the son of a gun.” LET THE BURNING BEGIN!”, I was saying in my head, but now, alas, fire.

Photo – Will Barnes © 2011

“Super-Cool” is what I’m saying in my head at this point. Ahh….what we were all looking forward to. With arms Flailing, Old Man Gloom goes up in a blaze. This is about the time when our 420 friendly crowd members also decided to burn, I mean…what a great time to burn right?

And Now, Time for the Fireworks….

To finish the show, they shot off a decent amount of fireworks, I slowed down the shutter speed a little to catch this one. Overall I was super content. The show was great and I’d definitely recommend this to Tourists or locals in the area that haven’t been.

The Video

I also had to get a video of the thing burning, I must say, it was pretty spectacular to watch and hear Old Man Gloom Groan till ashes. Check it out…Watch it in 1080p HD.