Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

  And So It Begins. Photographer Anthony Berot Is Comin’ 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 13 th  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 Canad...

The Junior King and Queen Showcase Comes To Malvern - Kiddies Parade To Follow Winning Queen Costume By Gilbert Medina for Caribbean Camera New venue. New vibe. New Super Cool costumes.   The Junior King and Queen Showcase was held outdoors on Sunday afternoon at the Malvern Town Centre in Scarborough.   The event attracted an estimated 2,000 people, many who stayed all afternoon to see the new big costumes that will be worn in this Saturday’s Children’s Parade. Over 30 children from the competing mas band camps took turns showing their stuff and their beautiful large bombastic   costumes.   By the end of the event, two children emerged as winners. Meet the new Junior King and Queen of Carnival, Miss Sadie Murphy from Carnival Nationz and Jalil Vincent Rampersad from Epic Carnival. The Queen wore a costume called Burrokeet Comes to Town and the King came as the Jester Grin. Despite this being the first time the Showcase has been held in Malvern (l...

Sponsor-less but Happy.  The Toronto Caribbean Carnival Rolls out a summer of fun, fancy and jammin' By Stephen Weir Lewis and Davis - photo by Anthony Berot OK break out the roti, fire up the air horn, put on the beads and glitter, it is Carnival time in Toronto.  Yesterday the organizer of the annual Toronto Caribbean Carnival held a loud fun kick-off to their 52nd year with a press conference at the lakeside Boulevard Yacht Club. While Mas models paraded in costume and steel pan players performed, 30 or so Toronto media came into the club’s ballroom to hear what is new and different about the summer festival that begins in just 42 days.   In 2019 the festival runs from July 9th to August 3rd. E pic Carnival's Sheyenne Persood was a model at the presser - sweirsweir Facing the media were six speakers sitting at a long table, ready to talk about all aspects of the festival.   So what was said? The message from the experts was right to the ...

Epic Carnival’s costume launch last Saturday has Freudian influenced sections for every revellers' inner dreams Story by Stephen Weir Photos By Gilbert Medina If Sigmund Freud had attended Saturday night’s Epic Carnival costume launch he’d probably would have said that it was an event that reached out not to his Ego, but to his Id.  The Id is that part of the  mind’s psyche, where innate instinctive impulses reside!  Epic’s moniker was Persona and the 500 people who attended were asked to choose the costumes they liked based on their own impulses! “We asked people to think about what their Persona is,” explained Epic’s Jerrol (Stretch), Augustine. What they saw on stage was our EPIC Carnival models portraying many different concepts of Persona. We wanted unique themes that captured the energy, passion, imagination and culture of our masqueraders. This year's focal point is image and self-expression. “ EPIC put a list together of possible persona and matc...

Old Time Blocko Brings Out the Calypso in Toronto By Stephen Weir for Tomorrow's Caribbean Camera Connector is no dummy; he knows that it pays to have a sense of humour to be a Calypso singer these days. When the 2016 Calypso Monarch was asked to pose for a fun picture with a member of the audience at a new weekly Blocko, he said he knew someone just stupid enough to help him out. He was right; a blond haired mannequin in the Epic Carnival costume showroom was an excellent m odel for this Caribbean Camera photographer. The Toronto singer came by the Epic Carnival mas camp at the Tam Heather Curling Club in Scarborough last Friday to perform at their new Friday night Blocko parties. It was perfect weather for a fete that was held both inside and outside the large sports building for the new series. He sang, danced and performed to about 100 people (and costumed mannequins) both inside the hall and outside looking in from the parking lot. “It was a bit of old time Carnival sin...

Merman can’t dance, but has an Epic amount of fun trying BatGirl-weir photo By Stephen Weir for Caribbean Camera I don’t know anything about   Ryan Oldham (aka Farmer) aside from the fact that he dances worse than me (and I am the undisputed King of the Misstep). But early early Sunday morning his dancing stole the show at Epic Carnival’s Scarborough costume launch.   It was 1.30am and there were 500 people inside Hall C of the Chandni Grand Banquet Hall. The last of the night’s 10 sections – Myth of the Sea - was on stage. Raesha Sirois, the former Face of the Toronto Caribana Carnival, was the very last model to come on stage. She was wearing a striking ultra frontline lime green mermaid costume, complete with fishnet stockings, fish scales in her facial makeup, shells in in her headpiece and white and orange feathers. Can't dance but he stole the show All of the cameras and smart phones were recording her every move-- that was until Farmer started to ban...