Can you practice street photography at the county fair?

Not only is the answer, 'yes,' it's ideal.

I returned to the Boone County Fair on closing day, Sunday August 16 with one goal in mind: street photography.

Small towns offer ample opportunities to capture town-scapes, unique architecture, Americana, and scenes you'll only find when you take the time to drive out of the city, go past the suburbs, and into the heart of rural farmland. But something small-town street photography tends to lack is people. Oh sure, plenty of people live in small rural areas, but they're spread out, as are the streets, and there's just not enough concentration of population to capture candid photography of residents on the streets. That's where events like festivals and county fairs come into play. When people from all over the county, and beyond, descend on one place in mass numbers for a week at a time, it's like Christmas for a street photographer.

I had already captured several images during my two previous visits that week. On Tuesday the 11th of August, I took my 12 and 13 year old daughters, and I used the Fujifilm X-E5 to make some casual snaps along the way. On Friday the 14th, I took my X-T5 with a zoom lens to capture shots when not exploring with my family. This trip was different. The sole purpose was street photography. Most of the time I used my X-E5 with the XF 18mm f2 set for zone focus, and I kept my X-T5 with the TTArtisans 75mm f2 on the other shoulder for distance shots. Later, I went back to the car for my Canon Elan 50D film SLR to capture some frames on color negative film (I'll post the photos when they get back from the lab). I wrapped up the day with just the X-E5 and a small TTArtisans 25mm f2 manual focus pancake lens. It was a lot of fun, and I'm glad I had the opportunity to not only keep my skills sharp but to document one of the more significant annual events of rural life.