In case you missed the pictures and comments on Facebook, I’ve posted them to Flickr as well. My wife and I hung out with Mother Grove at Byrnes Pub for dinner and pre-show drinks. I brought a camera, not really intent on shooting their performance, just grabbing whatever struck my fancy. But with a band on stage, and a camera in hand, I just couldn’t help myself.
Spent the evening with family around the campfire. Always good fun when there are marshmallows, glow bracelets, kids, a guitar, a dog, and a swing. More pictures are on Facebook.
I hope I’m not like these jackholes. I try really hard to not be like them. I understand the desire to take pictures at Franklin Park Conservatory. But these guys stood right in the middle of the butterfly release program stroking their camera lenses manfully, completely oblivious to the fact that they were in the way and disturbing others. The presenter is the young woman in blue, just to the right of them.
Every time we go to the Ohio State Fair, some of the best entertainment is the people watching. If I let myself, I could spend all day doing street photography, with an intent to mock those with a fashion sense drastically different than my own. Though I took a lot of pictures (the best are available on Facebook and Flickr), I tried very hard to not take purely mocking pictures. This is a post about my failures in that regard.
Up top, a gentleman sporting a t-shirt for “Outdoorsmen for Christ”. I’m having a hard time understanding the link between rifles, fishing rods, cross-bows and Jesus. Perhaps I missed the Sermon in the Blind where he said “Thou must shootest the biggest buck of the land. For then you may cut off its head and have the head mounted on the wall of your living quarters. When thou does this, think of me.”
The next one is more about photography than street photography so I’ll digress for a moment. Years ago the only photography booths/tents were likely to have been “old fashioned” costume shops where you put on some cool old-west clothes then pose for an old-timey portrait. Those were good times. Actually seemed like fun, and I think I did that once with my parents long ago. Now the fair is littered with photography booths (this one from last year still hadn’t corrected their sign). The photog snob in me went OMG when I saw this tent. “Homies Forever”? Seriously? And he’s taking pictures with a camera using the popup flash (just visible on the far right) using a projector screen as the background. Wow. At that moment I wanted to never be associated with photography ever again.
I’ve been practicing shooting from the hip recently, trying to grab shots like this one, without making the subject aware when I’m close. I thought it comical that here I was, an obvious mark, with too much money to burn, walking by and he was texting. I can’t be too harsh though… at least I couldn’t smell him. On our way back through later, he managed to convince my son (also with too much money to burn) to let go of $10 in exchange for 10 darts that my son managed to use to break 11 balloons (one dart hit 2 balloons). In exchange he got a “medium” stuffed shark. Years ago (probably my son’s age) I thought the balloon games were a steal–it was so easy (for me!) to break the balloons, I could practically take any prize I wanted every time! Now I realize that the prizes cost less than the price to play. With the shark in his hands, I asked if he was happy to have spent $10 on a $4 stuff animal. “Yeah, well…” his voice trailed off. “At least I had fun playing!”
I love this dude’s Mohawk. It definitely made a statement. Now that I’ve aged a bit, and even sported a Mohawk of my own (not quite this cool) I’ve realized that the hair-do says nothing about the person. I used to be intimidated by something like this. Now I can see that this is just another dork wanting some attention. Oh, and it’s really sweet that his girlfriend had the same blue hairspray on just a bit of her hair. “No honey, I won’t shave my head for you. Yes, I love you, but really, don’t you think painting this little bit makes the better statement?”
OK, last picture for this post coming up. This person wandered around the fair in public looking like this. After I saw her, I couldn’t un-see her. Then I decided I had to make sure others couldn’t un-see her too.
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You’re welcome.
