At one time or another everyone has been to the Carnival, Fair or Circus. Even if you don't enjoy going to the Carnival, you have seen them set up in a field somewhere around town.
One of the main attractions of the Carnival is the Ferris Wheel. Although the Ferris Wheel seems to be the center piece of the Carnival, it has been my observation that hardly anyone ever rides it anymore. Maybe people want to ride something a little more exciting. I imagine that the Carney Folk keep the Old Beast around because it is great advertising. You can see it from miles away.
As you can see, it is quite majestic, especially in the night sky.
Behind the Ferris Wheel is another ride. I can't remember the name of it, but it is very colorful. It swings and turns. When it is is motion it is a lot of fun, or so it would seem from the screaming.
If you blow up the above image, you will see some interesting things. Obviously, the ride in motion is fun, but you will also notice that there are two people in the photo. They were looking at the animals in the Feeding Corral. What is more interesting is... the people that you don't see. While I took this photo, there were a bunch of people walking around the street in the middle of this photo.
Look more closely and you will see a ghost image of some legs and feet. The two people looking at the animals (and the animals themselves) barely moved, so they may seem a little fuzzy. But the people who where walking from one ride to another hardly even register in the photo. The camera doesn't recognize that they were there.
Then I moved to the other side of the ride to get a closer view.
From this vantage point you can catch even more of the looping motion!
Another fun ride is one that spins so fast that the centrifugal force pins you to the machine while the ride uprights itself. I remember being a child and convincing my Mom to ride this one with me. I told her it was the 'best ride in the park'. She was pretty mad at me after that. Here it is just getting started:
Then it starts to upright itself:
And then it really starts to spin:
Finally someone decided to ride the Ferris Wheel, so I got to photograph that in motion, too. There is something very Romantic about the Ferris Wheel. Maybe that's the other reason the Carney Folk keep the Old Beast around... for the Hopeless Romantics!
Since I was experimenting with Lights In Motion... I decided to try one other potentially fun idea. While in a time delay shot, I manually zoomed the lens which added another dimension of movement. I had the circular motion of the Ferris Wheel and then added the 'forward' movement of the manual zoom. The effect is similar to what you might expect from Captain Kirk asking Scotty for Warp Speed:
As always, feel free to click on the images to enlarge them to get better details.
I am in experimental mode right now with the photography, so if there is anything that you would like to see... send me an e-mail and I will try to find the time to add it to my list.
Next I will add some Portrait shots from a shoot I did last week.
Enjoy!
Peace and Love,
------Nick
