The Great Minnesota Get-Together

The Minnesota State fair took place a couple weeks ago, and I went with my camera. Great decision. Here are a couple of the better shots. The entire album is here: http://picasaweb.google.com/theschief/M ... ateFair09#. Picture of yours truly behind the camera at the end.

Enjoy!


Self-explanatory.



Ride the slide!



There's a little gondola that goes over the fair.



Which full-breasted amazon? OH, THAT full-breasted amazon!



This shot was too easy.


*** *** ***

BONUS!

Spoiler

I found this sign hilarious. I also loved the awkwardness of the guy in front of it (which really doesn't show up in the shot), and the position of the man at the table.


PRIZES!!! (Notice the light pink bag...)

I loved the one with the swing, the one with the slide and the one with the Amazon. The cheese one was just random but okay...
For the one with the gondola I think you could have taken up a better position to make everything even out, but still I loved it. Keep shooting XD.

Hey! That place looked awesome, and you got some great pictures! Here's what I think of them:

"Cheese Curds" - It's cool, and I love neon signs, but I'm not crazy about the fact that it's just sort of a "point-and-click" photo, with the sign right in the middle of the picture. Maybe I'm being overly artistic, but the rule of the thirds rocks.

"Ride the Slide!" - Love the colors, love the angle, not so crazy about the person standing right in the front. XD

"Gondola" - Again, I really like the colors and angle in this picture.

"Amazon" - *gigglesnort* But seriously, the colors and lights in this picture are beautiful! Again, I'm not crazy that the Amazon woman is right in the center of the page. Maybe if you could crop it so that there's more of the merry-go-round and less of the thing sticking out in the back, above the merry-go-round?

"Chair Swing" - The colors in the center rock, and I love how they go in a rainbow sort of way. XD The slight blurriness around everywhere else is also good because it sort of focuses on those pretty lights.

Bonus pictures:

"Hilarious sign" - You're right. That *is* amusing. I especially like the "Yesssss!!! Pork chops" kid. XD

"Spiderman" - "Come along now, Spiderman--no, I told you a thousand times, we have to go home now! You don't have time to go on the ferris wheel again!" And great observation, about the pink bag. XD That is a MANLY man with his pretty pink purse and Spiderman dolly. xD

Come on... it was for his kid in the stroller! You have to have balls in order to have a daughter!

I love the colors in all of these. The fair has such great color and energy! Yay for fairs!

1) I dunno, but there is something about it that makes me love it. Yay for neon!

2) I'm torn between the guy in the front being distracting and actually being quite hilarious. He seems to take away from the photo and add to it alternately. And the way the slide just sort of slopes down is so cool.

3) Just in terms of artistic pickiness, the lamppost there is kind of weird. Other than that, I love this picture.

4) *snortgiggle* I like it. The colors make this my favorite, even though the subject is just... bizarre, I guess.

5) Another angle of this thing would have been cool, but I still like it.

Spoiler'd pictures:

6) I love it. Love it, love it, love it. And the awkwardness of the guy in front does still sort of show through.

7) I love seeing guys with enough guts to carry their wifes' purse or their kids' diaper bags. And then carrying Giant Spider-man? This guy has won my respect forever!

Yay for fairs! You have reminded me to bring my camera when I go to the fair this weekend! Did you eat cotton candy or pork rinds? Or... funnel cakes?

*drools over fair food*

~GryphonFledgling

Hey Smooooorg!

Nice pictures! To be honest, I'm not really fond of most of these, as they look pretty much like 'snapshots' rather than artistic shots. I do like the skyflyer one, because the object is centered nicely, you've a nice balance of color, and despite the fact that it has a bit of noise, it's a candid.

I'd like to see more of your work. At exciting events like these, (I admit) it's rather hard to be artsy in the midst of fun.

June

Thanks for the responses!

The way I approached this was kinda funny actually, I had read an article in NatGeo a few weeks back about State Fairs, and was inspired (as always) by the NatGeo photographs. The fair was a complete bonanza of photography, as GF says, there's just so much going on.

I took quite a few pictures of a lot of these things (less as the light grew less and less) and my favorites were often the most direct angles that you guys were talking about. Whereas I tried to be a little interesting with the picture of the gondola, I felt as if some of the other photos spoke for themselves, and I was loath to distract from the focus, amazing as it was. I'd be interested to hear some opinions on this approach- I may be a little biased in starting from a newsy approach to begin with.

As for my other pictures, if you follow the link on the OP you'll get to my picasaweb account which has all of my decent-good photographs. I posted some photos from Tibet on YWS a loooong time ago, but I keep them linked on my profile.

I love photography.

I agree with Juniper. A little like just snapshots. I really liked the last one. (Not the soiler). It had a great sense of color to it. Also, the slide looks like fun. I would totally go on it. Try some other pictures and try to center them more.