photographing Old man gloom
Having grown up in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I was lucky to be exposed to some truly unique traditions and cultural affairs. Without equal, The Burning of Old Man Gloom, aka Zozobra, is Santa Fe’s most badass and unusual event. Will Shuster’s The Burning of Zozobra began this fiery tradition in 1924. The idea behind burning Santa Fe’s monster is simple. He’s a bogeyman! He menaces our community throughout the year, causing us anxiety, grief, sadness, and apathy. So each year at Fort Marcy Park nearby the Santa Fe Plaza, we summon the Fire Dancer to rally hope for the community and scorch his specter ass into ashes. People are invited to write down their glooms on paper to be stuffed into Zozobra’s chicken wire exoskeleton, later to be dispatched by fire. Shuster first built his monster to stand only three meters tall, but along with the world’s problems, Zozobra has grown to over 15 meters in height! That’s a lot of ash!
As a Santa Fe youth, Zozobra ignited my pyro phase. I’d invite my childhood friends over to watch me burn tissue paper Zozobras in my backyard. Unbeknownst to my parents, I nearly set the yard ablaze twice. For some in the Santa Fe community, there’s a stigma associated with Zozobra. My conservative parents considered the event to be dangerous, enabling of party and drug culture. Their assumptions about the family friendly event kept me from attending as a kid. Most years the best I could do was watch the event on television. I’d be on the lookout for the next day’s newspaper which would feature a cover story on Zozobra, always describing the unique changes to his appearance each year. What color would his hair be, how about his eyes? Were his ears rounded or pointed like a goblin? And was he really flipping off the community with his middle finger or was that symbolic of something else?
Since returning to Santa Fe after nearly seven years away, I’ve reengaged with Zozobra in a new way. I’ve offered my time in service to assist in building Old Man Gloom, keeping the now 97 year tradition alive. I now work with the Kiwanis Club, a nonprofit organization who’s Santa Fe chapter was entrusted with the rights to Zozobra by Shuster in 1963. Kiwanis now uses the event to raise money to help children in need. To that end, I’ve substituted childhood matchbook for a camera. Photographing the Burning of Zozobra for Kiwanis is a thrilling and admittedly stressful experience. Being a photographer with a modest budget for my camera gear, I don’t wield dual camera bodies on slings across my chest like most other pro photographers I saw at the event. Instead, while Santa Fe’s monster was burning, I quickly swapped between my Nikon Z mount 24-70mm 2.8 and an F mount adapted 80-400mm 4.5-5.6. I was worried about heavy noise in my images, but due to intense light emitted by the event’s fireworks and Zozobra being engulfed in flames, light was not a problem. Despite a delay here and there as I swapped my lenses, I walked away with dozens of exceptional shots. I’m proud to say that Kiwanis has invited me back as one of their official event photographers next year!
In 2021, Zozobra’s aesthetic was 80’s themed, including nods to Michael Jackson’s 1982 global hit Thriller and the 1985 teen drama film The Breakfast Club. These design details were added as part of the “Decades Project” leading up to the tradition’s 100th anniversary planned in September, 2024. To learn more about Will Shuster’s Burning of Zozobra, visit the event’s official website.
