It’s become personal tradition that I go to the Indiana State Fair at least once when it comes around, which this year is August 4-20.
New this year is the Skyride, which spans 1,400 feet across the fairgrounds’ front promenade. While it’s cool, the reconfiguring necessary to accommodate it cut out a lot of pedestrian space. It was crowded. I’d rather have the old configuration back.
But the Skyride didn’t take away any space from the food booths. All the usual vendors are back.
My favorite two foods at the Indiana State Fair are the smoked turkey legs and the Indiana ice cream from the ice-cream barn. Oh my, the turkey legs are outstanding. Dairy doesn’t sit as well on my stomach as it used to, so I forewent the ice cream this visit. Frowny face.
I like photographing the midway the most. There’s so much to focus on, and it is challenging to capture the moving rides at just the right moment to make interesting photographs.
I am pleased I got that fellow with his arms out like that, and the young woman looking like she was calling out to someone.
We went to the fair after work and stayed until darkness fell. At dusk, the lights go on.
Dusk is my favorite time at the fair. The hot sun has gone away and the lights are on, yet there’s enough natural light to see well.
The games seem even more colorful at dusk than they do in daylight.
The midway is just at its most photogenic when it is lit.
I like to get people in the foreground of my fair-scene photographs, especially when they’re doing something interesting. I was super pleased that three Indiana State Police officers wandered into my shot as I was composing, and that my Canon S95’s shutter lag was not so bad that I couldn’t keep them in the frame.
Where night falls slowly in July, it falls quickly in August. All of a sudden, it was dark.
We came out of the midway and walked the back half of the fairgrounds, where booths are set up with all sorts of things for sale, from hundred thousand dollar farm tractors to ten dollar pendants.
By this time we were tired. I bought my traditional giant bag of kettle corn, and a box of taffy for my youngest son, and we headed home.
