Last weekend, I gave my husband two simple requests. 1) I wanted pumpkin pancakes – I only request these one time a year (mostly because they’re only offered in October, but still). 2) I wanted to go to the North Carolina State Fair at night for a little photography date. It was super crowded…and on any normal day, we would have stayed far far away, but I kept my husband occupied with dirty fair food so I could take advantage of “all of the lights.”

I don’t have a great tripod (it was a cheapie that came with a kit – thus the reason I have tripod on my Christmas wish list), so I didn’t bother to bring it. I also didn’t want to lug around a ton of equipment so before leaving the house, so I had to decide which lens I wanted to bring. I probably should have just brought my 50 mm f/1.4, but my fear was that I wouldn’t be able to zoom out for a full view of the fair. I love my Tamron 28-75 mm f/2.8, but it can be heavy at times…I also knew that the fair would be super crowded and didn’t want it to get broken in the masses. So…I brought my good ol’ (and hardly ever used) kit lens – the 18-55 mm. And ya know what, it really wasn’t so bad.

I couldn’t help but think of Katie Lloyd and her wonderfully un-focused shots while I was snapping away. I also applied a few of the lessons I learned in Europe, most important of which is to provide context (aka include people in your photos). I have no idea how the selective coloring got involved, but I think it works here (above two shots and then again two down).

One of the main reasons I wanted to go to the fair at night this year is because I really wanted to capture everything illuminated. Although I love my pictures from last year (here, here and here), I didn’t have any at night. By the way, for some reason, these stuffed and oversized Jamaican bananas were a hit…who knew?!

Now that I’ve gotten a taste of the fair at night, I might take next year off…it’s just way too busy. Either that, or I’ll go during the work week at 10 o’clock in the morning…something like that. However, you can’t substitute the fair for it’s people watching value.

Believe it or not, we didn’t actually ride any rides. I just wanted to photograph them. My husband was completely content with that arrangement, although he couldn’t quite figure out why so many of my photos were blurry. I had to be sure to throw in a few focused photos just for him.

Another thing we did not do…eat a ton of weird fried food. Last year, we tried a fried Reese cup – it was actually pretty yummy. I think I saw fried Kool Aid this year…oh, and the return of the Krispy Kreme burger – that just doesn’t sound right. We kept it safe by eating at Church Row (I don’t know if that’s what it’s really called, but it’s the area where all churches set up mini-restaurants) and topping it off with a funnel cake. Of course, we also had to get a taste of NC State’s ice cream…yum!