Day of the Dead 2007

(I think this altar won first place...)

2007's Dia de los Muertos - the Day of the Dead - has come and gone. Here in Los Angeles, one of our family's favorite Day of the Dead celebrations is the one held at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, located behind the Paramount Pictures back lot. This year, it was held a week ago last Sunday, under appropriately moody, gray, lightly drizzling clouds.

It's a genuinely homegrown event that's grown over the years into a major Halloween-time destination. Lots of dancing, music and food, but our favorite attraction by far are the beautiful altars. Most are in the traditional Mexican style, loaded with bright colors - especially orange marigolds - and with that hyper-baroque level of elements and detail that we so love about Mexican visual culture.

We didn't take a lot of pics at this year's event, but hey, this is L.A. - there seemed to be two cameras for every person in attendance. There are plenty of photos online documenting this great event - here's a small selection of links to Day of the Dead related sites:

The event's site:
Day of the Dead at Hollywood Forever Cemetery

Some great Flickr links:
Day of the Dead group
Hollywood Forever Cemetery group
Wildbell's set
Chuck T's set

A photographer's beautiful site devoted to the holiday: Dia de los Muertos.net

And Wikipedia, of course: Day of the Dead

Here's some more of our pics from the event:











A big heartfelt thank you goes out to those who built the altars as well as to those who put on the event - we love Day of the Dead at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Here's to many more years of wonderful celebrations!