It was a cool April morning — around 19 degrees. I walked ten minutes to the train station in Schofflisdorf with a cold Quöllfrisch in my hand. Something that had already become a ritual on days when I was heading into Zürich with my camera. But this day was different: it was my first Sechseläuten.

The year before, I had watched it from my phone, more than 8,000 kilometres away. A bit insane? Yes. Absolutely. And here I was.

On the train, at every stop, you could already feel it. By the time I arrived at Zürich HB, I was met head-on by a human tide in motion — costumes, musicians, photographers, everyone moving toward the same place. I had no idea where to start. I just knew I wanted it to be authentic. So I did the simplest thing possible: I walked toward the music.

That's how I found the parade.

The scale of the event from above: the parade filling the Limmatquai, the Fraumünster tower in the background. This is the Zürich you don't see in travel brochures. © Gus Pacheco

What Is Sechseläuten?

The name means "the six o'clock ringing" — the moment when the bells of the Grossmünster would ring to announce the end of the winter working day. For centuries, this was how Zürich marked the turning of the season. Today it happens every third Monday of April and it's one of the most spectacular things I've ever photographed.

More than 25 guilds (*Zünfte*) of Zürich gather in a parade that winds through Bahnhofstrasse, Paradeplatz, and along the Limmat before arriving at Sechseläutenplatz in front of the Opera House. Each guild represents centuries of tradition — bakers, carpenters, merchants, millers, each with their own costume, their own music, their own character. There are horses, decorated floats, brass bands, and people in period dress who genuinely look like they stepped out of 1631.

And at 6pm, they burn a snowman.

Two portraits from the parade — the energy you can only get by walking alongside it, not watching from a fixed spot. © Gus Pacheco

The Parade: Where to Be

The parade starts in the early afternoon and you have roughly two hours to move along the route, change positions, and photograph it from different angles. Don't stand in one spot. This isn't a static event — it's a river and you need to flow with it.

• Bahnhofstrasse midway: The street is wide enough to cross. Move alongside the parade and change angles. The guild signs in the background tell the story — "Zunfthaus zur Zimmerleuten" visible behind the drum corps is the kind of contextual layer that makes a photo.
• Paradeplatz corner: The parade turns here, which causes a natural slowdown. Faces come toward you. This is where I got the portrait of the woman with the Tricornio hat and the roses — she didn't even know I was there.
• Oetenbachgasse / elevated walls: Locals climb walls and traffic barriers to get above the crowd. Do the same. The shot looking down into the parade with the crowd behind is only possible from height.
• Sechseläutenplatz — arrive before 17:00: The burning is at 18:00 sharp and the crowd will be five to eight people deep. If you want a clear line of sight to the Böögg, you need to be there an hour early.

Three guilds, three centuries of history. The mounted members in 18th century costumes, the drum corps past their own Zunfthaus, and the military cavalry in WWII-era Swiss uniforms. © Gus Pacheco

The Human Moments: What Nobody Photographs

Anyone with a telephoto lens can photograph the fire. The images that set this work apart are the ones most photographers walk past.

The kiss (left) is the image that stops people scrolling. The woman with the Spitz and the roses next to the old mill wagon (right) — three symbols of Zürich in a single frame. © Gus Pacheco

The elderly couple — he in a guild top hat, she reaching up to kiss him mid-parade — was captured in a fraction of a second. I almost didn't take it. I'm glad I did. That single frame says more about what Sechseläuten actually is than any wide shot of the bonfire.

The swan float passing the Gucci store on Bahnhofstrasse — old Zürich and new Zürich in one frame. © Gus Pacheco

The Burning: How to Photograph Fire in Daylight

The Böögg is a cotton-wool snowman packed with fireworks and explosives. At 6pm, it's mounted on a bonfire at Sechseläutenplatz and lit. The clock starts. The year I was there, the head took exactly 26 minutes to explode — which according to tradition means a long and rainy winter ahead. And to be honest? That's not what happened at all. The truth is the Böögg is often wrong. MeteoSwiss has studied the correlation and the conclusion is clear: the burning time depends on how the bonfire is built, the humidity of the wood, and the weather on the day — not on what summer will bring. But I'm glad that scientific reality hasn't stopped the tradition. Some things don't need to be accurate to be worth doing.

Shooting the fire — what actually works

• Expose for the fire, not the scene. Your camera in Auto will expose for the overall brightness and blow out the flames. Switch to Spot Metering locked on the fire, or dial in Manual before it starts.
• Pre-focus on the Böögg before it ignites. Manually select your AF point and lock it on the figure while it's still intact. Once the smoke starts, autofocus hunts for contrast it can't find — I never trust autofocus in situations like this. Choose your point, go for it.
• Burst mode for the explosion. The fireworks go off in milliseconds. I shot at 1/1600s in burst with the 55–250mm. Even then, timing is partly luck — shoot a rafaga. And remember: the moment the head explodes, people will jump, scream, cheer. You're not just photographing fire — you're freezing time. Stay calm. Keep shooting.
• Stay after the explosion. The skeleton against the smoke, with the Opernhaus emerging behind it — that image only exists 30 seconds after the head goes. Everyone else is already cheering and leaving. Stay. Shoot.
• Include the crowd. The image with the spectator holding up his phone in the foreground is more powerful than a clean shot of the fire alone. The reaction is the story.

The Experience — Beyond the Photos

I ate a bratwurst and had a beer while waiting for the burn. That's not optional — it's part of the ritual. But it's not just the Sechseläutenplatz: food stands appear all over the city along the parade route. Cheese, sausages, pastries, wine. It reminded me of a tequeño on the streets of Sanare, or a papa rellena in Santa Marta — that specific feeling of a city feeding itself during a celebration. It's one of the things that makes this feel like something real rather than a tourist attraction.

Standing there, in the middle of Zürich, photographing something that is simultaneously a carnival, a historical ceremony, and a neighbourhood party — I kept thinking about contrast. I've documented marches in Venezuela, the Zaragoza day in my home state. Protests and festivals in Santa Marta. The Lost City in Colombia. Every tradition has its own logic, its own texture. Sechseläuten has a texture unlike anything I'd experienced. Serious and joyful at the same time. Ancient and completely alive. Always happy to echar el cuento con mis fotos.

The Raclette stand on the parade route — and a man with his own miniature Böögg. Both images say something about what this city is. © Gus Pacheco

By 9pm it's over in the streets. There are private guild dinners and events continuing through the night, but the parade and the burning are a daylight affair. Everything is done before dark. Very Swiss.