Some cities will have the olympics, the world cup. Our town has the Armada Fair. A week long country festival that takes over the whole town. Suburbanites make their flight in plaid shirts and cowboy boots to see our crowd-pleasing demolition derby and ingest food so unhealthy that only once a year you feel not guilty eating it (talkin' about those delicious Elephant Ears!).
This was my first week shooting for the fair. I was very excited to get connected with them get access to the fair and more so to their premier events. On this occassion, I decided to splurge on the rental of a Canon f2.8 70-200mm is II lens courtesy of borrowlenses.com.
The first couple of days unfortunately had to be delayed due to the historic flooding that occurred in the metro Detroit area. So I was kept at bay until Wednesday which was Demolition Derby Night. Of course as expected it was a great turn out. In the meantime I was trying to get a handle on the new lens and figuring out where to move along the sidelines of the derby. I thought I found a great spot to set up until this happened...
My whole foot went into a pile of mud.
However I did prevail and ended up with some nice shots throughout the evening's event!
Thursday was followed with the Figure 8, which is a spin-off from the Demolition Derby. Friday I had the opportunity to get there early enough to catch the Watermelon Eating Contest, provided by the local Blakes Farm. The 4H auction was also in full swing while across from it I was able to catch the end of the Pony costume contest. I think Maximus pictured below won (at least in my opinion). But the day didn't begin until the annual country concert started. This year, Parmalee was playing. It was the first time I shot a big band and had to deal with the 3 song rule and a barricade of 16 year old girls. Yet, I was still happy with how the shots turned out.
Saturday I was able to get there even earlier and catch some action from the Corn eating contest. Starting from age 5 to 18. The kids take this competition serious as you can see.
Finally, Sunday came around and I took the time to shoot whatever else I didn't catch. From people on the rides, to the tractors, the farm animals, and the final event, the tractor pull.
So like all good things, today the fair came to an end. I'll admit it though by say that I am exhausted. I learned a lot about my photography during this whole week. I became more comfortable to just shoot and not be concerned who I am shooting and where I am shooting. Once I got in the "I don't give a crap" stage, I was able to focus more on getting a good shot than just getting a shot without getting in anyone's way. This will be good because I have a couple of events coming up to shoot, including TEDxDetroit. Hopefully I can carry this momentum till then, but for now I'm off to get some rest.
