Colors of the Fair

One of the things I have enjoyed doing since moving to rural Maryland is attending the Great Frederick Fair. Earlier this week, I made my second trip – I attended last year, two months after moving.

For me, it’s a great place for creating pictures using some of my favorite inspirations – signs, lights, machines & equipment, food, people in candid situations, animals, and life after dark, to name a few.

The sights and sounds and smells blend into a wonderful blend of life. It was a little unnerving to have to eat my delicious roast beef sandwich from Hemp’s (the justly-heralded Jefferson, MD butcher shop) while sitting across from the beef barn with all the cows inside, but I managed. I love seeing all the kids – boys AND girls -climbing up on the tractors and big Cat machinery and sitting pretty. The old Minneapolis-Moline tractors in the vintage equipment area look so orange and pretty and members of the greatest generation look at them with fond remembrance, perhaps of boyhoods spent on one just like it.

The army, the Baptists, the Dems and Repubs are all there recruiting. You can get just about anything deep-fried, including corn on the cob. You can buy a tractor, a hot tub, storm windows, a Honda, a weathervane, a Confederate flag, a cowboy hat, feed, knives, or peace sign hoop earrings. You can hear Billy Ray Cyrus or Josh Turner singing, even if you’re not in the grandstand.

Once it’s dark, the midway is bright, packed and amazing. Fly up to the sky in a boat with Pharoah’s head. Try to stand up a bottle with a fishing pole with a ring and get a prize. Shoot out the middle of the target at Machine Gun Alley. Ride the Tornado, the Gravitron, the Tango or the Yoyo. High school kids posin’ on a Friday night. Packs of girls squealing at one thing or another. Boys talking big about stuff for which they really have no clue. Older folks playing Bingo , dads trying to break balloons for their kids. Great stuff for an itchy camera trigger finger.

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