CARNIVAL GOERS SAY CHEESE
And So It Begins.Photographer Anthony Berot Is Comin’
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| ANTHONY BEROT WITH BANDLEADER PHOTOS - BY SWEIR |
By Stephen Weir Anthony Berot has already covered two costume launches in the past week, an FMC open house and is already getting his gear ready for a busy busy April. The EPIC carnival and SunLime launches are in the books and Jamaal Magloire’s Revellers launch at the Grand Luxe coming up this weekend.
The official photographer of the 2023 Toronto Caribbean Carnival figures this his 13th year taking pictures of the festival formally known as Caribana.
A tall fit 70 something man, he is easy to spot at any and ALL carnival happenings. He has his video camera on a tripod, a camera (often two) around his neck, and when the Soca music is blaring he is dancin’ beside and around his gear.
The colourful costume launches. Blockos. Children’s events. The King and Queen contest, Pan Alive and the Grand Parade. No living photographer in Canada has taken as many carnival pictures as Anthony Berot. By his reckoning he has over 60,000 carnival related digital photographs on file. And don’t forget his videos and social media posting, he has days’ worth of those!
Left EPIC model on stage - Berot
He gives his photographs freely to the media (including the pictures we have published here), carnival stakeholders and the FMC. His pictures have appeared around the glob/ Carnival photo spreads and single shots have turned up in American newspapers and magazines (from the LA Times to Newsweek Magazine), cross-Canada and of course throughout the Caribbea. Always colourful, always in focus, you know right away. Anthony took em.
Below Epic Launch by Berot
“ I do worry that we don’t have (a Toronto Caribbean Carnival) archives but I am working on this,” he told this paper.
Right - Sunlime launch - Berot
It is early in the carnival season, but he is sensing already a spirit of rejuvenation from the Bands, their models, and fans. “I am seeing higher production values in the construction of the costumes. The models are well rehearsed and obviously skilled on the catwalks. More young people have come out already hopefully recognizing our shared heritage.”
EPIC Carnival kicked off the season last Saturday evening at the Grand Luxe banquet hall on Bayview Avenue in North York. It was well attended but …. Berot says the weather “sucked. It rained. It didn’t keep ticket holders from attending but I noticed fewer media out than at pre-pandemic launches.”
EPIC’s theme? Passion, Berot took over 300 pictures on Saturday and found, yes, the costumes from almost a dozen sections are sexy, there are outfits for all shapes and sizes, and revelers don’t have to go as” bare as you dare” if you don’t want.
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| Sunlime Launch by Anthony Berot |
The photographer was kept busy early Sunday evening taking costume launch pictures of last year’s number one medium sized parade band, Sunlime.
The carnival fashion fete was held at the Ontario Science Centre shortly after the building was closed to the public. According to Berot it was an energetic crowd that took in the costume designs of seven sections. The 2023 theme, as his pictures show, is Desires.
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