Steampunk IV
Steampunk Festival 2022
Waltham, Massachusetts, May 2022
Waltham’s Steampunk Festival returned this week after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic. There was a big crowd, but not as many costumes as in years past. To be fair, it was a cold, blustery day, and some costume-wearers may have left early.
I tried to avoid the posed, rogue’s gallery effect that marred my earlier photo-reports on this annual event. I focused instead on the spontaneous behavior of costumed participants. Eventually, the cold gusts of wind became uncomfortable, and I left early, before I could turn my lens to the uncostumed crowd.
"What is Steampunk?" you may reasonably ask. It is a genre of science fiction themed on the steam-powered machinery of the 19th Century, and on the fashions of dress and architecture of that Victorian era. It could be described as the future as imagined by the denizens of that time, or as conceived by the fertile mind of its most famous science fiction writer, Jules Verne.
Steampunk festivals such as this have appeared worldwide in recent years, as interest in the genre has grown. Enthusiasts have been known to make their own costumes, and often come from far and wide to attend a festival.
For more Waltham Steampunk photos, see also: Steampunk III (2019), Steampunk II (2018) and Steampunk (2017).
