Ever since I have started studying photography I have always wanted to photograph at a carnival and do what the other famous artists such as Picasso and Diane Arbus just to name a few had done. Believe it or not, I wanted to photograph this particular carnival at night but that failed to happen. Unfortunately the day I attended was their final day of operation. The mystical surprise the carnival has to offer has always fascinated me. From walking into a maze with nothing but mirrors on the wall or sitting on a coaster that does nothing but spin you around in circles at unbelievable speeds. Traveling carnivals have always left me questioning the stability of the rides. I mean, do you really trust a Ferris Wheel to send you up hundreds of feet into the air when just hours before a trucker was hauling it down the interstate from the previous town. On my first visit to the carnival, I decided to take the Holga to give the intentional out of focus and dark edges. The Holga is made with a plastic lens so I was limited on what exactly I wanted focus in the frame. The entire time I was thinking of Picasso and his work from his Rose period. This particular period of Picasso’s work was influenced by the different clowns and circus performers that traveled with the circus. While walking around, I kept on thinking of Diane Arbus and her work with the so called, “freaks” from the carnival. Her photograph of what looks to be a building in the middle of a hay field kept on pecking at my brain. Her use of flattening three-dimensional objects is what keeps me constantly motivated to photograph. This inspiration inspired me to take the photograph of the wall that looks to be self supported. Taking a three-dimensional object and flattening it to a two-dimensional object gives you an entire new perspective of looking at the ordinary.
