Wrapping up at the Fair...

The week of the fair was an incredibly busy week, not only was the fair going on but there were football games on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. That gave me two days, Wednesday and Thursday to shoot a photo column. Luckily with the fair going on I could buy some time by shooting a photo page. The problem was Tuesday I had four assignments, two, however, were at the fair. One was a feature story on the llamas part of the stock show. The other was the bubble gum contest. Luckily the Kids fun show followed the bubble gum contest, which I was able to stick around for a little bit before leaving for the next assignment. As I was leaving I was feeling pretty good about what I had, but knew I still needed more.

On Wednesday, there was nothing going on in the evening, so I was able to just go out and walk the midway aimlessly looking for whatever I thought would make a good image. As I was walking to the kids petting zoo I saw the girl (below) staring at goats, I figured this would be my main photo, her eyes nearly popping out of her head nearly made me laugh out loud just shooting it. But, I still needed more photos to fill the page. As the sun started going down I made my way to the carnival rides, the neon lights always look better at night. I saw some people riding the chair swings and figured I'd make a shot of it with the Ferris wheel in the background, when I saw the little girl waving to her mom every time she went by, I knew that was my shot. I did keep walking around making sure I didn't miss anything.

Sneakin a Peek at the Fair...

Every year in the middle of September is the West Texas Fair & Rodeo. There are a few things significant about the fair. The first being, is it marks another year in Abilene for me, since my first year here in 1999 was the week of the fair. It's also usually a week of rain, or quite a bit of it and also when the hot summer weather starts to cool down. However, it all starts out the Thursday before the actual full week of the fair with Sneak A Peek. None of the exhibits are open, basically it a chance for people to go, try out the various artery-clogging fried goodness and ride the rides. For this one, I usually concentrate on the rides.

Raining on my parade...

I'm still not a fan of most of the parades we have in Abilene since not many people come to most of them, and quite frankly they are all pretty much the same and most of the "floats" are just people riding in cars advertising what ever car dealership giving them the car to drive in the parade. The West Texas Fair & Rodeo parade still has plenty of that, but it also has a lot of bands, some actual floats, riders on horseback and most important... a decent-sized crowd.
Since it is unofficially monsoon season here and I've bitched about the rain for the last three weeks what is one more post to bitch about the rain? Actually it wasn't raining when the parade actually started. Which, I guess, was good because it didn't scare the people away. The crowd was still good. The rain did start towards the end of the parade. Which is when everybody started to break out the umbrellas. That was a good thing since most of what I had shot so far wasn't all that fantastic. And, despite all the rain that I had shot in, I didn't really have an umbrella shots. So, I figured today was the day to shoot it.

Feature Cruisin...

For some reason when school starts back up we go through a lull of stories, which means the last two weeks have resulted in a lot of feature cruising. Friday was one of those days. I've always felt the best and sometimes easiest features to find are those with some sort of a news peg. Before going out I try and check our calender pages and any other places that may have a list of events going on. They don't always prove very fruitful but every once in a while you find something. After that it's just getting in the car and driving around looking for something interesting. Friday I had spent about 30 minutes looking before heading by the Taylor County Expo Center, I had remember seeing some of the truck from the carnival in a few days before but nothing was going on. It was worth a shot to check again. As I drove by there were a few of the rides being put together. After that it was just a matter of making an interesting photo.

Fair Week and the Rodeo

Fair week, not a whole lot to say, it's one of those things I've both despised and and enjoyed at different times over my nine years here. Last year was one that I enjoyed, before that I leaned closer to the despise side. I think this year the pendulum has swung closer to the liked side. I think a lot of it depends on how many assignments I have there that week and what they are.

This year wasn't too bad, most of my fair time was spent working on a photo page for the end of the week, instead of shooting stories on how to make a funnel cake (this was an actual story one year!). I also, shot sneak-a-peek, the opening night of the fair rides, the bubble gum blowing contest, and the rodeo. Those don't bother me because all have potential of making good pix (unlike the making of the funnel cake story).

There are a few great things about having a photo page to work on. 1) I can spend my free time out of the office instead of in front of my computer archiving photos, well that's great until I fill my hard drive. 2) The deadline is the end of the week, so I'm not in a hurry, I can take my time . Taking my time leads to boredom, which leads to trying to find something quick and letting the creative juices flow. Boredom can be a good thing. 3) Cheesecake on a stick, yum. Nuff Said. 4) At a time that news hole at most newspapers is shrinking like George Costanza's, ahem , in a swimming pool, I get a full page to do whatever I want with! The only drawback was we had a photog on vacation so I didn't get to spend as much time as I really wanted, but I still made time to get out there and enough cheesecake on a stick I mean, photos... to fill my belly, I mean page.

The fair rodeo is a freelance job. A friend who is on the rodeo committee asked me to shoot it for them a couple years ago, and I guess I did ok, because they keep asking me back -- this was my third year to shoot it.

The great thing about working for the people who are running the rodeo is access. The first year it was ok, I was pretty much feeling out what exactly they were looking for and the better places to shoot. This year, I was able to get the bread and butter shots they want, and then some. Basically I was able to go where ever I wanted to shoot from as long as I wasn't in the way or in danger. Which meant outside of roughstock events I could shoot from the arena floor. The shot below is the winner of the mutton bustin competition giving the rodeo queen a kiss after winning a new pair of cowboy boots for his victory.