Raleigh editorial photography

Spent a day at the circus. Cole Brothers Circus - Raleigh, N.C. April 2013 A circus is a fighting machine of gruelling work, of long, hard hours which begin in the grey of dawn and do not cease until the last torch has been extinguished down at the railroad yards late at night; a thing which fights constantly for its very life against the demons of adversity, of accident, of fire and flood and storm; a great, primitive, determined organization that meets defeat every day, yet will not recognize it; that faces disaster time and time again during its season, and yet refuses to countenance it; a place where death stalks for those who paint the bright hues of that veneer which is shown the public - a driving, dogged, almost desperate thing which forces its way forward, through the sheer grit and determination of the men and women who can laugh in the face of fatigue, bodily discomfort, and sometimes in the leering features of Death itself! That’s a circus! COURTNEY RYLEY COOPER. Under The Big Top, 1923