Tightrope walking

“The secret to life is finding the right balance to everything you do…”

Last year I visited the castle Kost with my family and at that particular weekend, the castle hosted an event including several performances, one of them tightrope walking. High above the court a rope was tightened and a few performers made their way to the other end of the rope and back. With my camera, I tried to capture the moments I loved best and here are some of them.

I love the S shape of the body of the man captured in the photo above, the figure dressed in the trousers resembling a skirt somehow makes me think of ancient Egyptian frescoes.

And look at that simple mask of a plague doctor giving an impressive illusion of mystery…

Tightrope walking was just part of the fun, there was also tightrope sitting and lying… and even exercising…

When taking the photos, I was trying to zoom in on the performers as much as my lens allowed me but here is a capture showing a bit more realistically what it looked like from below, with regard to where the rope was fastened and how small the performers actually seemed…

As you can see in my photos, all the performers were secured against falling to the ground and I’m sure they had to be not to endanger either themselves or the people watching them. When I was processing the photos, I thought about how more impressive the images would look without the security measures but I opted for the documentary value and refrained from retouching those details. Imaginary reality may be a dangerous thing.