An award winning series (honorable mention on PICTURE OF THE YEAR LATIN AMERICA competition in 2013) was a side product of a reportage I was shooting about the street carnival in Rio de Janeiro.

The carnival Tuesday is a national holiday in Brazil. No wonder every town in Brazil holds a carnival. In bigger cities, the festive vibe starts weeks before and comes to climax on Saturday and Sunday before holiday. Carnival in Rio is the biggest and most famous. Beside the images from Samba School competition, that are seen around the world every year, big events are held also in São Paulo, Salvador, Recife, Olinda. But beside those, there is a growing street carnival going on in Rio and São Paulo. Street carnival is growing form one year to another exponentially, since the events are open, frequent and free of charge.

In Rio, the capital of carnival, small street happening has developed into the biggest open-air party in the world. In 2011, the year of the photos, there were 457 bands playing on the streets and about five million Brazilian and foreigner visitors have flooded the streets. Traditional samba music is sometimes accompanied by other Brazilian rhythms, like »marchinha« and »chorinho«, but we can also hear bands playing world music like Beatles for example.

It is common to get to the party fantasized. As the city is crowded at the time of the carnival, and the traffic is stuck, the best way to get from one street block to another is by metro. That is where I photographed several wagons, full of revelers. Without talking to them, they started posing for the image.