County Fair and Fair Use
Creative Commons photography at one of our remaining common areas
I love county and state fairs—the diversity of people, intensity of emotions, and quantity of fried dough make them rare spaces. People striving for the excellence of a blue ribbon for their honey, mounting carnival rides with jangly nerves, and everyone dressed in their best.
This is the place where you can watch mud fly in a demolition derby.
Then walk across a parking lot to get shade from a cow in a barn…
Many of my photos are picked up by Wikipedia editors because I publish them under a Creative Commons license. Here’s my county fair pics uploaded to Wikimedia, including Zipper Ride at Night.
For every perfectly-framed shot of summer joy, there’s a workaday view of the Libertarian Party of Minnesota booth that someone wanted to access.
People have uploaded nearly 2,000 of my photos to Wikimedia and my photos are used on everything from Malcolm X College to the Community Center in Roann, IN to the Disaster Transport ride at Cedar Point to Gurnee, IL to French language wikipedia page for Great America to the Hausa language page for Chicago to pretty much any page that references the Washington Post. Republican politician Dan Cronin’s wikipedia page would be worse off without my photo. I like it.
In all, I’ve got 12 complete photo albums from my fair adventures. Use them!
Minnesota State Fair, August 2024
Dutchess County Fair, Rhinebeck, NY, August 2024
Minnesota State Fair, August 2019
Fun House, Wyandot County Fair, possibly the best hand-painted fun house ever.
Every Flower in the Wyandot (OH) County Fair 2015. I took a photo of every single one of them, including the associated description and prize, if applicable.
Wyandot (OH) County Fair 2015, First national Bank Sycamore Day was off to a slow start.
DuPage County Fair 2014, where the rodeo was a highlight.
DuPage County Fair 2013. Documenting antique tractors is a side goal.
DuPage County Fair 2011 This is my all-time #1 favorite carnival ride (see a complete list of pendulum rides here).
DuPage County Fair 2010— the thrill of the prize
DuPage County Fair 2009— I’m here for the hand-painted Jimi Hendrix