Sunday, September 01, 2013

Summer's End
67/365

After many years of wanting to get back to any one of the many county fairs in my area, I finally bit the bullet and went to the Fonda Fair which is definitely a harbinger of summer's end, and stayed long enough to get some dusk images of the rides on the midway.

I started out when it was still pretty light just to get some hand-held action shots.





Then when it began getting darker I grabbed my tripod and used some slow shutter speeds to get the movement and the lights.  





I used my 11-18 wide angle for many of the images seen here.  What fun!


A security guard followed me back to the booth where I stashed my camera bag with some friends.  Unbeknownst to me, some parents were complaining that I was taking pictures and they didn't like it.  (One lady did come up to me and ask if I was with the newspaper--I said "no, these are just for me personally".  She said she had a reason for asking because she didn't want her son...  I cut her off and said I wasn't taking photos of the kids and I showed her a couple of the images.  I guess she was placated because she walked away satisfied.)

So, I guess the security guard was on a mission to:
1) kick me out
2) have me arrested
3) commandeer my flash card
4) read me the riot act

No seriously, none of that happened and when I showed him a few of the images, he just waved his hand and said, "you're okay", and walked away.  

Sheesh!  We live in a sad world, but really, public place = no expectation of privacy.
I can see both sides of the debate, but at least I got my images tonight.



4 comments:

Never Settled said...

I love that wide angle one with the ferris wheel!

Also, it occurred to me that people might think it was weird you were taking pictures of their kids. I know it's a public place, but with all the things that go on in the world today, it's not that farfetched. We even had training on how to spot a "predator" at Disney, and taking pictures of kids was one of the things to look for. I'm glad you could show the lady your pictures and she dropped it.

I miss the Fonda Fair!

Never Settled said...

To follow up, I don't think the lady thought YOU were a predator, but I can see her being concerned that you might post pictures of children in a public venue and then....So I don't blame her for being concerned.

trishalyn said...

Great compositions...gorgeous images! Glad you didn't get arrested! ��

~she~ said...

I fear taking photos in public places because of that very reason. I don't like confrontation and would probably cry if someone approached me.

We have a photographer in our church who always takes pictures of kids and posts them on her Facebook page. She never gets permission. I've always worried about that and once asked her to take down a picture of my son's friend. He was only visiting and she snapped a pic of him praying. I found it to be a very private moment and didn't know if his mom would be OK with it being plastered on the internet. Since then, I saw her post something about being asked to have signed releases from her kid's soccer team before she could post their photos online. I'm glad someone finally called her out on it. (She uses their names too.)