Where?

Helsinki, Finland.

When?

May 1st. I didn’t do much research for the year’s annual “meetup somewhere” – wherein my family has a rendez-vous with my parents, somewhere “between” our respective homes in Paris and Brooklyn – beyond “Let’s go to the Moomin Museum!” So we didn’t know what Finnish May Day involved: all the university and technical/trade school graduates wearing their graduation caps all day in a fantastic nationwide party. Brand new caps, decades-old caps; they were everywhere. While the older caps were worn conventionally, a few younger graduates used them as minimalist expressions of their maximalist enthusiasm. Such as these young gentlemen.

Why?

We were in the place that inspired Moominvalley, so I often found myself thinking about how the world looks to a child. When I saw this group running down the street, my first instinct was to lower myself to my son’s height and get a shot from his angle. That’s his shoulder on the left, with the runners towering over us. A day spent looking at Tove Jansson’s dioramas will change your perspective in interesting ways.