Back to the Fair

 

The Lake County Fair took a hiatus last year for COVID 19, and I suffered from withdrawal. So this year I submitted twelve photos and earned two red ribbons.

Technically, I could have entered twenty-four photos—one each in each of the twelve color categories and one in each of the twelve black-and-white categories. But in some of those categories I either had nothing at all (e.g., I had no sports photographs taken within the last three years) or I didn’t like what I did have (e.g., domestic/farm animals). And that was my criteria. I didn’t have to love it, but I didn’t want it to embarrass me, either.

It was easy to decide what to enter in the color Artistic Effects category since I had only one that I really liked. The photo of the Grand Canal in Venice at the head of this post was the first of my two red ribbons.

Since I was only allowed to enter one photo in each category, other decisions were harder. That was especially true of the wildlife categories, where I had a number of choices. I’m glad I ended up with the seagull for the color one, since that was the other red ribbon and I don’t think I had anything that could have beaten the first place entry anyway. I chose the seagull because the lines from the seawall and the fence give it an interesting and unusual composition.

My second choice was this iguana. It’s a nice photo but too conventional.

I also considered entering the iguana as a black-and-white wildlife photo, but I think it loses a lot of its interest without the color.

It’s still a good picture that wouldn’t have embarrassed me, but here again I had several choices and ended up going with something a little less conventional. The photo of the geese ready to take flight didn’t win any ribbons, but I doubt the black-and-white iguana would have done any better.

My favorite photo didn’t win anything, either, but I’m still proud of it, especially since portraits are not my strength. Deciding which one to enter wasn’t hard since I had only one. Here it is just for fun.

I’ll never know if I would have done better if I had made different selections, but that’s part of being an artist. What I like and what appeals to others isn’t always the same.

And I’m fine with that.