Fairground Field Notes

We parked at a church. It didn’t look like one; the previous tenant was clearly a big-box retailer. Still, the building had a unique, no-frills charm. You’re not supposed to judge that book by the cover anyway. Still, it made me wonder what repurposed use the congregation had found for the loading dock.

The church was not our end destination though. We left our private wheels behind and boarded the public one, a chartered bus, and made our way to the nearby fairgrounds. We’d bought tickets to the Central Florida Scottish Highland Games.

I’d recently bought a new camera. It’s a little one-handed bb gun of a thing designed to be taken anywhere. A full size camera is basically a purse for an SD card, so I was excited to have something pocketable that could be both consistently used and intermittently ignored.

We stepped through the gates and… what’s Gaelic for pandemonium? If your brain is a pair of dice, this event was a Yahtzee shaker. Everything stopped making sense almost immediately. A couple, each with their own sword, pushed their kids in a stroller. A woman in a digital camo kilt stabbed a bale of hay and chucked it over a bar used for pole vaulting. Bagpipe music seemed to radiate from the earth like nuclear fallout. Every direction was a diorama of surreal madness.

It was great. I love people-watching, so under different circumstances, I would have been in hog heaven. However, my new toy, the one allegedly small enough to allow me to forget I had it, started to feel heavier and heavier. I’d come here with a goal to make something of the chaos, yet all I wanted to do was watch it unfold.

I gave it my best go. It’s always frustrating at first. Like working out or playing an instrument, I’ve found there’s a certain “warming up” I have to do when shooting.

I couldn’t find a rhythm. The overcast sky created a soft and even light, but that only meant the incomprehensible visual noise to be found in each direction was well lit. I had to force my eyes to work overtime because every scene felt like a magic eye painting.

Plaid garments (noisy pattern) occupied the foreground en masse, and the lush mishmash of grass and forests (more noisy patterns) sat in the background. It felt more like deciphering than creating. Every photograph looked like multi-colored staples jabbed in the middle of green scribbles.

I needed something different to focus on. Everything was pulling my attention in every direction. I wanted to find something tranquil, something unassuming that would be just as confused and alert of their surroundings as I was.

That’s when I found them.

Scattered amidst the gealtachd (Gaelic for insanity) was my teich (escape). Sheep, cows, and even a unicorn appeared. Their consistent colors and non-intrusive patterns served as a much needed contrast to their surroundings. I was grateful for finding these animals scattered throughout the fair; the least I could do was spend some time exploring their perspective.

To be clear, I am not what you would call “chill” with animals. Excluding dogs and cats, I treat nearly any other animal like it’s a tarantula, or a horse: I wish them well, but I have no desire to touch them, ride them, or put myself in a position where there’s risk of one falling on me while in the shower.

That being said, I think animals are so cool to just look at and think about. “Wonder” is too cliche of a word, but come on, aren’t you curious what the unicorn in this photo thinks he’s doing? Like looking through a telescope on a beach, you’re barely able to make out an island of consciousness in the distance. There’s another life form out there, and looking, really looking at them allows you to register something of a shared experience.

Thank you for your time.

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