Dramatic Carnival Parade Photos On View in Little Haiti

Christopher Mitchell’s J’Ouvert photos were shelved for years and now see the light of day in “Daybreak” on view at P71 Gallery in Little Haiti. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

In 2004, Haitian-American photographer Christopher Mitchell went to work on Labor Day. Living in Brooklyn at the time, he decided to take photos during the New York borough’s famous West Indian Day Parade held every first Monday of September. But he didn’t shoot the main parade – instead, he got up before the crack of dawn and joined a procession for J’ouvert, a Carnival celebration celebrated in several Caribbean countries including Haiti. 

“I would always document Carnival in Haiti, and when I was in New York, I would also document American parades and types of festivals (including Carnival),” says the artist, now based in Miami at Bakehouse Studios. “But you have to get up very early to catch the J’ouvert element.” 

J’ouvert originates from colonial-era protests by enslaved Africans: Barred from celebrating Carnival, they would vandalize the costumes of white colonial citizens with tar or oil in the early hours of the morning. Mitchell took a similarly radical approach to his own project. He shot from within the crowd rather than inside it, entirely on film and mostly in predawn darkness, experimenting with film stocks that would allow him to work in very low light. A malfunctioning flash meant that the only source of light came from overhead streetlamps. 

Christopher Mitchell Mitchell shot the photos within the crowd, capturing the dynamic celebration of J’Ouvert. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

“These images are very much like a time capsule of how things were,” he says. “It was a beautiful challenge for me, to be able to shoot during that time when it was mostly film that was available. And I got to try it out in a way that maybe, if I was hired, I doubt a client would want me to do that. But that’s the beauty of being free – I wasn’t hired for this. This is a passion project, so I got to shoot it the way I wanted to see it done.” 

The photos mostly went shelved for years, existing only as a single, self-printed volume in Mitchell’s studio. It took a visit from Yessica Gispert, an artist, curator and Visiting Assistant Professor of Photography at Florida International University, for them to see the light of day. A show of the photos, titled “Daybreak” is now on view at P71 Gallery in Little Haiti. 

“This whole project that he put together is in real time. It’s him walking through the crowd, and when it starts, it’s at night, and when it ends, it’s daytime.” Gispert, the show’s curator, says. “And I was really drawn to that perspective of him being within the crowd versus on the outside, him being a Haitian photographer, being among his community, him being shoulder to shoulder with everyone and enjoying and observing, not in this kind of outsider view, but very much an insider view. It made me think of Gordon Parks, it made me think of also a lot of SNCC photographers who documented the Civil Rights Movement.” 

Curator Yessica Gispert compares Christopher Mitchell’s work to social photographers such as Gordon Parks. (Photo courtesy of Christopher Mitchell)

Certainly, the images themselves are striking and dramatic, defined by strong shadows and a dynamic sensibility, with bodies constantly in motion. Light shines off black-painted limbs covered in slick, glossy liquid, a reminder of the celebration’s origins. The graininess of the photos also confers an appropriately gritty quality. 

But there’s more to the photos than their aesthetics. Time has given Mitchell’s work an additional resonance: This is, after all, a time before smartphones and omnipresent cameras, and it shows in the faces and movements of the paradegoers. 

The photographer experimented with film stocks to allow him to shoot in the pre-dawn darkness. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

“People don’t think the way they used to, they don’t carry themselves the way they used to,” Mitchell says. “Like as we’re editing, we’re going through 100-plus images and just watching people in the crowd, just being totally lost in the moment, really immersed. Watching people’s eyes being almost in a trance, like being somewhere else.” 

Mitchell points to something that’s commonly expressed in 2026, that people are so hyperaware of smartphones and potentially being posted on social media that they refuse to express themselves in public. His photos show what the world could be like without this state of mass surveillance: More fun, less inhibited, not afraid. 

As the artist says: “This is before people even cared about social media.”   

WHAT: “Christopher Mitchell: Daybreak” 

WHERE: P71 Gallery, 230 NW 71 St., Miami

WHEN: Opening reception, 6 to 9 p.m., Saturday, May 9. Through Thursday, May 28

COST: Free 

INFORMATION: instagram.com/p71.art

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